Get Caught Reading
Posted by goodmind on March 24th, 2008
The relationship between author, text, and reader has never been more dynamic, and consequently, has never been more unstable. Try reading just a small part of the extensive body of commentary and in-depth analysis of Steve Jobs’ Yogi Berra impression. Each piece links to an additional half a dozen or so other articles dedicated to de-constructing the syntactically simple yet semantically loaded sentence; “people don’t read anymore.” Or feel free to comment on it yourself, producing and publishing your own content on the web has never been easier, thanks in no small part to a number of Apple products.
While the cynics among us may feel that the ease of production is perhaps part of the problem with literacy, Ad Age points a finger at a different culprit; your friendly newspaper ombudsman. This role has had many titles over the years, from public editor, to reader advocate, and for this reason, Ad Age is asking financially strapped newspapers to “spend your dwindling budgets on reporting — instead of reporting on your reporting.”
We consider this sound advice, since this post itself proves that there are plenty of us bloggers out their to report on your reporting for you, for free. The idea of a public editor is alive and well, because readers are empowered enough to advocate for themselves, provided they have an author and a text to respond to. For this reason, and despite claims to the contrary, bloggers aren’t a threat to the role of the newspaper journalists, but rather newspaper ombudsman.
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