Comment on Why the chaos in media might be a good thing by rick

Mathew, One point I don't see many people addressing is not only the overabundance of content, but the lack of diversity in that content. I'm 53 (aieee...) and when I was a kid there were 3 networks, 2 daily papers and various weekly and monthly magazines. If you followed the news would thus had 5 choices for local news (3 TV and 2 papers) and you got the news when THEY delivered it. National news? 3 network news programs. In depth analysis? Usually the Sunday paper or weekly magazines like Time or Newsweek. Special interests? Monthly magazines. My point is that a lot of the people running news organizations grew up in similar environments and still seem to assume that their news program is the sole source of someone's news so the national media all repeat the same handful of stories, the local sources repeat national and world events that aren't remotely local, and none of them ask who the heck their market is and what their focus really should be. My local news should be the best source of news about where I live. Cover larger stories if they have direct, relatable effects locally. Drop world and national news entirely unless there's something HUGE happening. Local papers should dig deeply into issues around the region and provide depth that the TV stations can't because of time restrictions. National news should skip wasting time telling me what the stock market did - anyone remotely concerned with that will have that information. None of this is to push aside operational issues like choosing more efficient CMSes etc, but those are playing at the edge. The real questions every news organization needs to ask itself are "Why do we exist? Why should anyone pay any attention to us given the hundreds of sources of information out there?"

Comment on Why the chaos in media might be a good thing by rick

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