Online news

an entrepreneurial mindset



A journalist must find a niche and keep it local. I hesitate in using the word journalist. Traditional news mediums are beyond civil disobedience... the digital age is here, and here to stay. Journalists of the past were forced to work with middlemen... or basically just the man to get the message out. With online news... the site creator is the boss... and the boss could be me. Perhaps we can leave 'breaking' 'hard' news to the big guys who have dealt with that news for decades (it would be a nice gesture to corporate America -- who appears to be squirming like a four-year-old who hopes not to shit themselves).... specialty, topic specific online publications is the key... and lucky for the class of 2010 their are more keys left than what dangles on the janitors lanyard. Know your reader. That isn't new. Considering the logarithmic technology embedded in google... it makes it easier to know your reader. We can know what they read and the readers clicking patterns... we can use this information to highlight new stories that the reader feels were written just for them. I'd rather know personally who my readers are and communicate directly with them. The main point I stress is to know your topic and not stray too far away.

Secondly, break it down. Provide within your site your own wiki'esque encyclopedia. Terms, events, people, ect. should be explained. This may seem to contradict my above statement of straying too far away... but time lines, event descriptions and explanations do not need to be presented within the story... provide the reader an opportunity within your site to research the background. I want the facts and news fast... but aslo, an easily accessible and easy to understand destination to fill me in on how we got to today's news.

How do we make money when web ads are pennies to a click... I'll have to think more about that.

I prefer a gonzo approach to writing... gonzo is not blogging, however. I don' t mind a subjective article.. as HST said, objective journalism is a contradiction of terms. There are so many staff reporters in a newsroom that I have no relationship with the writer. We want loyalty to the site as a whole.. but I think this can be obtained by creating a following for an individual writer. I want to know exactly what Laura saw, where she was, who she was surrounded by... what was her perspective... not necessarily her opinion. I remember Hunter writing once about sports writers picking up a collection of morning papers and compiling a story based off of everyone else's work. I'd prefer a mild subjective view to a makeshift view.