What Would Google Do?
By Ginny Atwood, George Mason University. Feb. 26, 2009
- 1. The world needs news.
- 2. People are consuming more news than ever (just in new ways)
- 3. The internet revolutionized finding sources
- 4. We get to decide the future
- 5. It’s going to be FUN!
“Everyone and everything—from corporations to governments, nations to individuals—must evolve in the Google era.” -Editorial review by Amazon.com
This includes journalism. Panic is a feeling not uncommon to those in a field that some say is dying. Pessimists aside, however, the world will always need news. “If you do not mind a little uncertainty, there is no better time to be a journalist,” said Joel Sucherman, multimedia editor for USAtoday.com, “This is the time they will write history books about.”
Sucherman visited George Mason University Feb. 23 to share his expertise with a class of journalism students and to ease some anxiety about their futures. He listed these reasons for optimism instead of doom:
Now fun is not a word commonly associated with news. Words that might come to mind first are death and politics, the opposite of fun. Sucherman said, however, that news has always been about storytelling . The content hasn’t changed, but the way it is presented has.
Serious news can actually be presented in fun, digestible ways. “It doesn’t have to be a spoonful of medicine anymore,” Sucherman said.
When USA Today decided to get into multimedia, they asked Sucherman to start up a division. “Multimedia makes stories jump off the page like never before,” said Sucherman.
USAToday.com is adapting to the times in interesting ways. One of which is user-generated content. In the past, news was a one-way street where newspapers told you what was important to know. On USAtoday.com, users can leave feedback that allows news writers to see what the readers think is important so they can tailor their stories to match.
Another example of the new emphasis on readers is USAtoday.com’s NFL Blog Squad, written almost entirely by citizen bloggers.
Even the sometimes dry subject of politics has been revamped on USAtoday.com where they have a candidate match game. You enter in where you stand on certain issues and watch as little pictures of candidate’s heads rise and lower in a race to see which candidate fits you best.
It may look like just a reason to show off their skilled IT team, but the match game serves a very good purpose. “It gets rid of all the noise like what the candidate looks like or what other people think of them and helps you make an unbiased decision.”
So since the internet has made news fun now it might be safe to include the irrelevant detail that Sucherman’s brother is the drummer for Styx. Cool!
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