New Media Bytes | Online journalism, web production and promotion

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 Thanks to Howard Owens for the great headline I adapted from his post on how journalism has evolved to fit the needs of its audience.

Surprise! Journalism’s audience is evolving, RIGHT NOW! And it’s high time all journalists jump on the bus. That means:

• Start a blog
• Bookmark on Del.icio.us
• Post your resume to a LinkedIn profile
• Make friends on Facebook
• Start tweeting (Twitter)
• Create a network online!

Why do this? Because journalism must adapt to how the ways which readers want to receive information, or risk losing readership. The young, digital audience isn’t seeking out news online, according to a Media Management Center study (pdf).

but they will read / view it if it’s there in front of them when they log on and if, as the report’s title suggests, it catches their eye.

How do you catch the eyes of the new breed of readers? Go where they are.

That’s exactly what some political writers are doing, performing microjournalism on the campaign trail by using Twitter for quick, 140 blurbs posted to the web (via NYT). I even followed the tweets of some of those journalists during the Michigan Primary to find a number of resources used for aggregating elections coverage on my site.

The flourishing practice of microjournalism is ” a sign of just how impatient this generation is,” Ana Marie Cox of Time.com tells NYT.  The audience wants quick information, and they don’t want to have to search for it.

Reporters can’t force disinterested streetwalkers to buy a paper, but they can infiltrate the online communities where audiences congregate to talk about the very issues and topics being reported by journalists.

If you have qualms about dipping your toes into the blogosphere, creating a Facebook account or even trying out Twitter, you likely are missing the point. Content syndication is what the audience wants.

Josh Tyrangiel, the managing editor of Time.com, sums it up great for the NYT:

“If you tell people how to consume their content, they will ignore you,” he said, a truism that experience had taught new-media executives. “Let people do what they want to do and try to be in their circle of choice.”

How can journalists get started figuring this out?

Like Scott Karp says:

The only way for journalists to understand the web is to use it!  (… then tell your friends.)