I don't think I've ever "begged" though at times I imagine it might have seemed that way.#
And I haven't been promoting rivers to them for quite some time, because I think the problems are much bigger now. #
I think the most important thing news orgs can do to improve their service is to include ideas and perspectives from outside the newsroom, esp those that are critical of their work. #
I would encourage a news org to run a river of sources their reporters consider authoritative. Blogs, newsletters, and whatever new formscome up in the future. This would initially be an internal resource, but the obvious next step is to share the resource with their readers, in the interest of increasing news flow, broadening perspectives, and also introducing transparency. And perhaps most important to introduce criticism of their work to their flow, something we need and they need. If I were going to beg for anything that would most likely be it. I wrote about how this would work in more detail in May 2015. #
When I read yet another NYT article or op-ed about how Facebook is letting us down, I keep wondering when they're going to look at how they contribute to this problem, how their coverage of Hillary's Emails, for example, gave Trump the White House, and set the country on the path to authoritarianism. I think they did far more damage than Facebook, and not surprisingly, that has not been examined to anywhere near the extent Facebook has. This is a serious problem, and it's not going to get better in the current news system. That's where rivers could make a huge difference, if they cared enough about the service they provide readers.#
Last update: Sunday November 14, 2021; 10:30 PM EST.
You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)