Content Suggestion for the Trib
I agree with much of the sentiment expressed by Roy Cooper on April 16 regarding the "divide and conquer" mentality that too often dominates political commentaries.
As for the newspaper industry re-inventing itself to be more USEFUL, here is one idea I'm sure gets considered from time to time, and could be used in conjunction with this site: a series of "Issues101" articles. Perspectives could be written by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Our voter's pamphlet comes to mind as somewhat of an example, but these articles would go much deeper, into the real basics that the vast majority does not truly understand.
The articles would be in the context of a series around a particular issue, delving into structural, historical, and trend perspectives. They could then be stored on-line and used as a basis for meaningful dialogue and respectful debate here on Rogue Current. The Mail Tribune and other local media, with their credible infrastructure of news providing expertise and southern Oregon position, would be serving the community in a much needed way; providing an objective, coherent foundation that is readily accessible in our hectic, overloaded lives, usable to more intelligently assimilate news. By the way, an important key to the above is the phrase "readily accessible". If you have to hunt too much for what you are looking for, it won't take off.
I was in my insurance agent's office the other day and he made a satirical reference to Obama. It wasn't outrageously insulting, but enough to make it clear he was not in favor of Obama's policies. I pleasantly countered with my opinion that he is addressing issues that sorely need addressing and doing his best to genuinely involve the American people. My agent said he is just repeating the same mistakes that Harry Truman made that ultimately failed. I paused for a moment, and then admitted that I wasn't up on what those mistakes were, and asked him to enlighten me. His response was that he didn't really know either, but that was what he had heard, and he hadn't had time to check it out himself yet.
I'd appreciate hearing what others think about this idea.
Regards,
Jeff Smith
As for the newspaper industry re-inventing itself to be more USEFUL, here is one idea I'm sure gets considered from time to time, and could be used in conjunction with this site: a series of "Issues101" articles. Perspectives could be written by Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Our voter's pamphlet comes to mind as somewhat of an example, but these articles would go much deeper, into the real basics that the vast majority does not truly understand.
The articles would be in the context of a series around a particular issue, delving into structural, historical, and trend perspectives. They could then be stored on-line and used as a basis for meaningful dialogue and respectful debate here on Rogue Current. The Mail Tribune and other local media, with their credible infrastructure of news providing expertise and southern Oregon position, would be serving the community in a much needed way; providing an objective, coherent foundation that is readily accessible in our hectic, overloaded lives, usable to more intelligently assimilate news. By the way, an important key to the above is the phrase "readily accessible". If you have to hunt too much for what you are looking for, it won't take off.
I was in my insurance agent's office the other day and he made a satirical reference to Obama. It wasn't outrageously insulting, but enough to make it clear he was not in favor of Obama's policies. I pleasantly countered with my opinion that he is addressing issues that sorely need addressing and doing his best to genuinely involve the American people. My agent said he is just repeating the same mistakes that Harry Truman made that ultimately failed. I paused for a moment, and then admitted that I wasn't up on what those mistakes were, and asked him to enlighten me. His response was that he didn't really know either, but that was what he had heard, and he hadn't had time to check it out himself yet.
I'd appreciate hearing what others think about this idea.
Regards,
Jeff Smith
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bob Hunter on -
Jeff: You've got a good idea. It's not as easy as it seems, however. We've had a lot of futile attempts over the years to get pro-con pieces on various topics. If it's a particulalry hot issue, or if we have readily available spokespeople for the two sides, usually we can pull it off. Often, though, we get one side that's fired up, while the other side is less eager to participate -- often just because they're busy.
When we do get pro-con arguments, I always think it's a valuable service -- and interesting. The different views on the same subject can be surprising and enlightening.
Interesting that this came up today, because we're in the midst of trying to get pro-con pieces from legislators on the GOP and Dem budget proposals. Haven't heard back from either side yet, but I'll keep you posted.
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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey A. Smith on -
Thanks for the feedback and update, Bob. As for the "lining up the two sides" challenge, what about flipping the sequence around? A YouTube approach, if you will, to writing these articles.
The Trib facilitates the forum structure, stops short of actually writing the articles. The community, in effect, does that through its collective postings. At some point, the "article" makes it into the hard-copy edition, yet still percolates away on the web-site generating lively, respectful debate moderated by the Trib.
The participants would post/submit their views, however short or long, to the website all under the "monitoring" umbrella of the Trib's "credible news infrastructure", e.g. the Trib could weigh in on its opinion, or eschewing the giving of an opinion, shed a paragraph on "Here is how I would edit this piece and the questions I would ask my reporter if this came across my desk". I'm not sure whether this would totally alleviate the resource challenge you outlined, or just shift it, but it would certainly achieve a valuable transparency.
Some additional thoughts:
1) This effort requires a serious IT and Marketing effort (I can hear you saying, "Really Jeff?")
IT: People need to be able to readily go to their issue of choice, see desired views, respond easily, search for related topics, maybe reference a Wikipedia article, see a dashboard showing percentages of certain positions, participation levels, etc.
Marketing: Optimally communicate this service to the general public, as well as recruit participants in the early going while necessary. A Web 2.0 Marketing strategy is also important, of course, as this site exemplifies.
The investment, and gamble, would be in nailing the structure out of the gate, at least to a high degree, and then committing enough time for it to develop to self-sustaining fruition. That seems like a fun sales job, and the right kind of energized sales/marketing person could have a field day with this "product". I know, however, that costs money upfront, unless you already have existing resources you could re-deploy.
I realize you don't have time to fully educate me on the existing inner workings and economic hurdles of the newspaper industry, but thanks for the opportunity to expound and ask "What if" questions from the perspective of an interested outsider.
I would imagine with the ever-increasing challenges to the struggling Newspaper industry, you guys have flown to major round table meetings where this stuff gets examined 18 ways to Sunday. Is this, or something similar, the current plan and thinking? Has this been layed out before somewhere where I missed it earlier? Has it been tried already, either successfully or unsuccessfully? And, if it failed, was it the idea or the implementation? If not this idea, then what's the better plan in terms of aligning with the Internet?
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