Desperate measures
The Associated Press wrote this on Thursday, April 30..
Chicago Tribune reporters question paper’s ethics
CHICAGO — Reporters at the Chicago Tribune say they believe the marketing department in recent weeks solicited subscribers’ opinions on stories before they were published, a practice they said raises ethical questions, as well as legal and competitive issues.
An e-mail signed by 55 reporters and editors, sent Wednesday to Editor Gerould Kern and Managing Editor Jane Hirt and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, questions why the newspaper was conducting the surveys and what stories were used. They also wanted to know which readers were surveyed and whether any story had been altered as a result of reader comment. …
Frankly, it stinks that this is the road they took to try and keep subscriptions and stay afloat. But there’s another problem below the surface.
The Trib wanted to discover what it should publish by asking its readers. The problem is, readers know what they want to read, but they don’t know what they need to read.
Before papers started dying, readers were getting a variety of topics with each issue they picked up. Most of the news was staring them in the face. Now we get to filter and choose what we want to read. And with Twitter, we don’t even have to read the whole article anymore if we don’t want to.
Of course, we can decide how much we limit our information uptake by who we follow — I’m not saying everyone misses out on important news items — but maybe we don’t even realize how we are limiting ourselves. It scares me.
We’re not making people any smarter by letting them decide what they’re going to read. Part of the burden falls on the reader to enlighten themselves, but doesn’t the burden also fall on the media to disseminate the news as balanced and as fairly as possible?
