Feb. 4 Readings

Zuckerman brings up an important point with his article about too many choices. We really do have way too many choices in what we watch or read in news, but they seem to be melding into a few common themes. This means we have a choice of a very small spectrum of news. For readers, it all appears the same. For editors, there is even more opportunity to copy and assimilate. I feel like the best way around this is narrowing what is newsworthy by site. By this I mean that five different Web sites should not have the same top stories. That is a waste and redundant in the online news world. If one person goes to those same five sites in one day, they should get different perspectives and different news. I would find out and use what is newsworthy to my own readers and feature that on the top headlines of the day or the way I tell the stories. I think what is hardest is finding out what the reader wants to know when they themselves sometimes aren't aware of it.
The Niles article's take on TV news is interesting. I feel like people in the industry look down on TV news because it breaks so many rules, but isn't it really just feeding what the audience is saying it wants?
Note: "Their’s was a passion that I rarely saw in the faces of executives dryly mulling spreadsheets" - is "their's" correct?
While I also agree with a lot of the criticisms of television news and the mistakes made by "he said she said" news, I also think that the journalists that look down on those styles are the ones that fall into it the most. People can only complain so much until they either have to change something or create a new way of doing things. Journalism students complaining about how news is done doesn't actually change anything.
The third article has a good point in its thought that newspapers should often consider running themselves more like an online news organizations (since more than likely that is what they will slowly become). I think that one major problem is the business aspect to journalism- someday a business model will work for delivering the news but so far most organizations are in experimenting mode.
The last article's comparison between American Idol and elections, I think, is overdone. I feel like this is cited too often and will only hurt election news. People will learn why young people tune into American Idol and not the election coverage (the human aspect, drama, young sexy entertainment) and try to apply it even more to election coverage, which will only hurt the news. As an editor I would try to avoid this comparison and find another way to reach people. I do agree with the idea that in order to pull young people into news, we need to regain their trust and make sure they know that they can count on certain news organizations to give them what they need to know in an honest way.