iSalon: Reader information absorption

At today’s iSalon, we got ankle-deep in reader information absorption habits.

Multimedia producer and djangoer Brian Immel brought his eight questions to get everybody talking - no right or wrong answers. By the way, if any readers are interested in taking this survey, email it to thuyn@spokesman.com or post your answer as a comment and we’ll bring it to the next iSalon meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, may we present the questions:

(1) Does information have the same value that it used to?
(2) Where do people get their news?
(3) Is the news industry lazy?
(4) Is our brand identity diluted?
(5) What is the company/newspaper/industry’s relationship to its audience?
(6) What is S-R’s tone?
(7) Does S-R meet the needs of its audience?
(8) Is S-R a service or a product?

(1) Does information have the same value that it used to? Here’s some of the argument:

No: Information has less value because it is increasingly more available in multiple forms, and the sheer volume decreases the value of any one piece or source of information. Also the number of sources has increased dramatically in the past five years. People may also be less likely to pay for their information, if we can look at the word ‘value’ as a monetary value.
Yes: Valuable information is valuable no matter the era - for example tax information is valuable to a person who seeks it, a recipient being the one to dictate the value based on his or her individual need. One editor posed the question, how does Consumer Reports stay in business if Google and consumer reviews are all over? It looks like CR is still a trusted source and people are still willing to pay.

(2) Where do people get their news?

Wherever they want to, perhaps. Reporter Kevin Graman brought up a talking point cross-posted in the Romenesko blog - ever so popular among journalists and news nerds - about a small Midwest town in which false Obama rumors fly like crazy from person to person. Here’s the MSNBC version of the story

(3) Is the news industry lazy?

Specifically, ‘lazy’ when it comes to creating transition to different information platforms. “If we were innovative we would have created Craigslist - or eBay,” said assistant managing editor Carla Savalli about the news industry as a whole. She added that it’s harder for the industry to be innovative when it doesn’t feel the need to be: Because it’s hard to set aside the practical matter of tending to the physical print product - the source of most of a newspaper’s revenue - in order to take risk in other platforms. Multimedia editor Nancy Malone also asks - How can we predict the successes of these risks in advance? So does that mean the news industry has brought decline on itself ?

(4) Is S-R’s brand identity diluted?

No: Pushing our brand and name in whatever form is terrific - it’s a matter of getting the word out.
Yes: Sometimes it feels diluted because when the newsroom is feeding multiple platforms - the question that comes up is, do some platforms suffer because we’re feeding others?

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