Jay Rosen’s take on “the people formerly known as the audience” must be unnerving to Big Old Media. This is what he says:
The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all.
The shift in news production will impact media in a major way:
Big Media will continue to be influenced by what former audience members want. If they see them posting funny videos, they will try to make their own. If they see them writing political blogs, they will make their own. Many new ideas for news distribution will be formed this way. In fact, it seems like most of the new ideas for news distribution online came from former audience members. Competition in the workplace is healthy.
Politico.com seems to have been created off this entire premise. Everything about the site (for the most part) is based on the needs of a new generation of online news consumers. Some things are less well executed than others (bad video vs. early and constant deadlines), but they seem to be trying. Apparently, the only reason they have a paper edition is because they wanted the older generation of politicians to see them as a “real” news source. They have adapted to various needs of the people formerly known as the audience, as well as those who are still audience members.
Here’s what editors said when Politico launched in early 2007:
Harris is also seeking a new style of writing. “The austere, voice-of-God detachment which is the classic newspaper style can be an impediment to engagement with the reader and a genuine understanding of what’s going on with a story,” he says. VandeHei says he wants “provocative content” and “reporters to be comfortable with letting readers know more about them.”
