Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The Listener Has Attention Deficit Disorder

Before you dismiss the latest report from Journalism.org as 'just for the newsroom,' take a look at how quickly the public moved on after Virginia Tech to the next talk topic and keep this quote in mind as you prep content for today:

Virginia Tech stands out as the most heavily covered event of the first six months of 2007, however, in the end the media didn’t stay on the story very long. During that time frame the narrative followed a fairly well-defined arc, turning from the actual shooting to trying to make sense of the enigmatic, uncommunicative killer, Seung-Hui Cho (which also involved a chilling and controversial manifesto from him), and then to Virginia Tech community efforts to heal.

How fresh is the topical "produce" you are serving up today? No one likes warmed over topics from last night's TV or today's newspaper. I love the news/talk position statement: "...read about it tomorrow, see it tonight, hear about it NOW, on..."

Are you delivering on that promise?

Talk about what's new right now. It's a matter of life and death for our medium.

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