Nieman Journalism Lab has two inspiring and instructive pieces from Joel Kramer of and Margaret Wolf Freivogel of the St. Lous Beacon. They, along with Scott Lewis, Buzz Woolley and the team at VoiceofSandiego –and Paul Steiger, Dick Tofel and their team at ProPublica–form what I see as the vanguard of the non-taxable journalism movement. All of these folk are doing stunning work with stunningly little resource. I was especially inspired my Margaret:
Having spent 34 years working in print, I know that much newsroom effort is geared toward playing up stories that will appeal to “everyone” — an elusive concept that often results in lowest common denominator coverage of little interest to anyone. Digital stories, we’re learning, get traction when they’re very interesting to some group of people — usually those who are knowledgeable about the issue and eager to learn more. By digging deeply on questions that matter, we can construct a path to understanding complicated issues, and anyone’s access to this path is just a mouse click away.
But what struck me most bluntly in reading both pieces is the importance of experimentation. Both MinnPost and Beacon found out that many of their ingoing assumptions about what would drive traffic were wrong. A grander discussion is whether traffic is actually the objective function–as opposed to interjecting substantive investigative reporting into the stream of public dialog. But God bless both organizations–and both CEOs–for making such a discussion possible.
