New Voices: Interactive Journalism: Drawing in Readers with a High-Tech Approach

Interactive Journalism: Drawing in

Readers with a High-Tech Approach

• Keynote: American Association of Sunday and Features Editors convention New Orleans, Oct. 1, 2004. This presentation was supported with a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation

By Jan Schaffer
J-Lab Executive Director

Our early work in the civic journalism arena tapped into a public appetite new kinds of news and information, distinguished by a higher level of involvement and a more personal stake. And lots of interaction: There were town hall meetings, task forces, solutions reports. The readers “got” it; they loved participating. And they even thanked the news organization for probing their opinions. These interactions in the mid ’90’s, of course, tended to happen in real space – a room. Now they are moving into cyberspace.

Now, here’s what you can do with a solutions report online – from WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. You can not only read about the problem, in this case a bridge connecting Ohio and Kentucky, but you have 10 different opportunities to contribute to a solution. If you want to pay for a park bench at $750 or a flower planter at $450—just click a button. You’ve just empowered someone.

How can we build interactive opportunities that are more than technological gee-whiz stuff? More than online chats and photo galleries?

I suggest that information becomes meaningful when the user develops some kind of attachment to it or involvement with it.

So, rather than focus on convergence, we should be focusing on another “C” word: connections and how new digital tools can help us build all kinds of innovative, new connections with our audiences. The potential of new media is not simply more noise – but information experiences and meaningful interaction– and even, I would suggest, entirely new kinds of civic participation.

• Read the full speech at J-Lab.org

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