Populism does not equal engagement

Steve Yelvington sums up the LA Times' failed experiment with an editorial wiki. He specifically mentions Greg Brooks very perceptive comments on Slashdot

" Their [LA Times] error lies in assuming blogs = populism, so Successful New Newspapering(tm) must = more populism, too. That's just not the case; Successful New Newspapering doesn't mean more populism as much as it means more engagement.

LA Times editors: Go ahead and own your editorial page -- it's your paper, and you already do a great job of having diverse voices from the community offer up commentary. The newspaper's editorial is the one place you currently allow the organization to have a subjective voice -- don't throw that away."

However, consider this: Use some of the vast resources of your parent company to offer free, idiot-proof blog space to your subscribers. Go ahead and sell ads, but also allow every blogger to stick in a Google AdSense banner if they want to, and let them keep anything they earn. Throw promotions, offer prizes, discount the subscription price if someone starts a blog -- do whatever you have to do to build a base of subscribers who are also bloggers.

Still with me? Good. Now: Every one of those bloggers should be subject to a limited Creative Commons License allowing you to: a.) publish URLs of interesting content your editors find; and b.) Excerpt content for use in the print edition.

You've just done several things: You've created an online advertising vehicle that requires less effort to sell (assuming you use pay-per-click as your model). Most newspapers try to sell ads into their online sites and most generate negative or near-negative returns on those sales. You've created a deep content pool. Armed with only a few editors, you can pull together a weekly section that would be, I believe, the best read in the paper after six months. Why? Because the voices would be genuine, unprofessional, opinionated and resonant with readers. Will you have to do some editing and fact checking? Yes, but that's light labor compared to pulling together a regular section. Oh, and give thought to doing a daily column of excerpts as well.... and... wait for it... you've creatied the basis for a new town square, with your paper as the foundation. Spirited dialogue, opinions everywhere and a lot of cross-chatter. Which is just as it should be.

Comments

[chinaguy]

"Inappropriate material" was on the LA Times and they shut it down? Seems like something China's People's Daily newspaper would do, but not the LA Times. The Horror!