Hey, you might be onto something there — I think you should “go with it”!!

;P nmw

That’s a good point. I’d like to see a feature that is able to measure the accuracy of what a journalist reports. Something that takes the body of knowledge of what’s happened, and that journalist’s previous predictions, and rates how well they do.

That way, we could measure the quality of reporting and opinion-giving, since reporters are so quick to give them out. After enough time, when Katie Couric says “X is happening, which will lead to Y” we can go over her historical data and see just how much credibility we should (or shouldn’t) give her.

Heck, for that matter, let’s add celebrities & politicians, too.

The average citizen may not realize how severely the public’s access to important news, gathered according to high standards, may be threatened by these bottom line trade-offs.

Can’t you just hear the arrogant elitism smacking from his lips?

Professional journalists … who get 90% of their stories from PR folk from anybody anywhere.

Report the truth independently without fear or favor … I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in our one-sided American media.

And then, the clincher: “The average citizen may not realize how severely the public’s access to news …”

Yes, yes, us average idiots out here cannot survive unless the SFGate journalists are able to package the reality of our world into its papers, in its fashion. The SFGate journalists are so much smarter, and more important, than us average idiots.

Journalism as a profession has been declining since long before the Internet made it obvious. For real journalists with real skills, there will be opportunities. But that’s the caveat: they must be great journalists … which is just how many of that 100 that’s getting the axe?

You could probably count them on one hand.

While they are paying the price now, Newspapers have the content which still makes them the long term winner — provided they evolve and don’t lay off all their staff; Many still seem to be afraid to push their content out aggressively in fear of sploggers, or, as you put it, lack of transparency.

This is where technology must provide the evolutionary boost, if you will. There are a few promising tools out there to help newspapers level the playing field in this search-centric economy. Copyscape and Attributor come to mind as leaders in this area. Technology from these companies or others like it can help lead newspapers back. Search engines have a vested interest in helping out too – they stand to benefit from better content online and should help provide the transparency newspapers require.

I think the average attention span of someone reading something online is 500 words. If I were a newspaper publisher today I would focus on the longer, investigative pieces which is why The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are relatively successful today. Because these are more like daily magazines, you tend to buy them when you see a story of interest or know that you’re going to be somewhere where you’ve got some time to dig into something substantial.

The daily subscription business model is threatened so maybe something more flexible is in order – how about a Starbucks type frequent shopper card that gets you 15 issues for the price of 10. Upfront revenues for the papers but more flexibility for the readers? Bundle multiple papers and give the readers even more choice for an even greater incentive. Your choice of WSJ, NYT, or, when your traveling in Europe, the Financial Times – I’d buy that *and* give you my subscriber data.

Let’s get creative folks!