Response to Post

This is a response to the Multimedia Muse email by Angela Grant on News Videographer that I also think has a key point.

I received an email today from Multimedia Muse, a new web site that highlights inspiring works of multimedia. It’s basically a promotional email trying to get people to use the site. But it contains an inherent thought that I believe damages journalism, and is one of the reasons why our craft is going through hard times.

I’m all about good, quality journalism. But the inherent thought in this message is, “We [journalists] know what is best for you [audience], and we don’t care what you want.”

I think it’s important that we get past this old-timey idea. People do know what they want, and they know how to go out and find it. If we’re not willing to give it to them, because we have a high-and-mighty view of ourselves and the importance of our work … They will find it elsewhere, and totally ignore us.

If a great work of journalism drops on the Internet, and no one is watching, does it still have an impact?

I’m not saying we shouldn’t do great journalism because of that. I’m saying we have to work it in within the framework of giving people what they’re looking for. If it’s necessary to rework some of our quality standards (putting cameras in the hands of writers, soliciting reader’s pictures for their homepages, littering our multimedia pages with TV news videos) in order to fit the bill, we have to do it.

This is not about us!