In the past, readers sought media outlets in order to obtain their news and information. Today, the shrinking of journalism forces writers to go after their audience. The writer that passively broadcasts is a dying breed. David Beard's article, available at: http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=171011 lends excellent advice and examples of how anyone with a relevant message can be heard by a larger audience, as well as improve their content.
Beard's article will definitely influence the direction of my sports website. And while I may not implement any specific idea that Beard proposes, he's certainly familiar with modern journalistic marketing. He lends novel tips to surviving in the modern "intra-webs," but he fails to give concrete steps to reaching his hopeful thoughts. If I'm catching his drift, the modern journalist needs to be versatile, and full of that "go-getter" mentality that you see on the floor of the N.Y. stock-exchange. Beard illustrates great tactics, but I'd of loved to see what technologies, programs, and skills he recommends that today's communicators must amass to run his playbook.
Ultimately, the quality of any publication is still predicated on how well the writer creates an experience for the audience; however, the marketing of that experience is becoming almost as important. There's no shortage of un-born chicken voices on the internet, so getting heard above the rest of the crowd and reaching a larger audience often determines the shelf-life of today's publications. In terms of my sports website project, I'll certainly need to invent attractive ideas, similiar to Beard's, to make my venture a success.
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3 comments:
I finally figured out how to leave a comment!
I like the fact that you want to use Beard's "10 Hopeful Thoughts..." but his "thoughts" take away the meaning of Journalism. At least, the way journalism use to be. I like how journalism is changing, but then I don't. I don't like the fact that people can create a web site and get paid for it when they don't know half of what they are doing. We go to college and get degrees in this yet those people who are getting paid well just started a site because they wanted to.
I like the idea of new Journalism, with the creative ideas and such, I just didn't like the idea of people not even going to school for this anymore and still getting paid for being a "journalist."
Also what I thought of his "thoughts" was his idea of Technical Communication. As soon as I read his article/blog I thought of Journalism becoming a part of the Technical Communication field, which I believe to be true.
So, I like how you are going to use his thoughts, it's a good thing to start thinking about as Journalism is changing. I just hope they still require proper schooling for those who wish to start a web site and get paid well for it.
Yea, Alyssa, glad you're posting.
Being versatile is very important. Crossing over to all sorts of venues is also helpful - a site that has YouTube links, FaceBook, Twitter followers, etc,.. can drive more traffic. It's a cross between being a journalist and marketing your product.
What Beard does is bring thoughts, but like you mentioned he doesn't bring anything truly concrete, such as programs used to create such websites.
It is good to be versatile, writing and marketing your materials. Like everyone in our program needs to remember though, cater to your audience and the readers that you want to bring in. Beard didn't really go into that part with greater detail.
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