Alan Mutter's latest blog post Wild guesses won't solve journalism crisis concludes with this admonition "It’s time for editors, publishers, academics and foundations to pony up for serious, in depth and disciplined study of what consumers want, what they need and how journalists and media companies can provide it."
That is exactly what we are doing with a survey team from the Minnesota State University at Mankato. We deliberately avoided using the traditional newspaper survey companies because we wanted a fresh look. And frankly out of all the years doing surveys, we tend to ask the same question framed by news producers, not news consumers.
Rather than ask "do you want more local news?" we are seeking the consumer's definition of local news.
The discussion with Associate Professor Lisa Perez of the Department of Psychology was simple. What do people need to direct their lives and how can we provide it.
I have no idea what will come of this experiment but in all likelihood it will raise more flags for us to explore. But the study being suggested by Mutter is getting underway.
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