Build your own echo chamber

The easy answer is for journalists to provide sharper, more engaging work that's, well, even louder than what we've offered our readers back when most newspapers had monopolies in their local markets. Fortunately, as the Internet slams us with new competition, it offers journalists new opportunities as well. Specifically, today I'd like to write about the opportunity the Internet provides us to build relationships with our readers that will help amplify our reporting and its influence in society.

Echo chambers have gotten a bad rap from some in journalism. But partisan media echo chambers can teach responsible journalists important lessons about how to motivate readers and to use the power of repetition to rebuild a newsroom's influence in its community.

We need to use the power of online interactivity to build our own echo chambers, not for partisan spin, but for real reporting. Because without it, traditional news reporting is going to continue to lose readership, and influence, in a hyper-competitive media market.

So, how do we do it?

First, journalists must offer reporting that people actually want to tell other people -- news so compelling that people will put aside whatever version of Scrabble they're playing on Facebook at the moment to send that story to all their friends.

Old-school, "he-said/she-said" reports won't motivate even the most bored Web surfer to click the "forward" button. Those stories are the easiest to write, and partisans on both sides of an issue get to see "their side" in the piece, so they keep readers happy. At least they did back in the day when newsrooms had little or no competition, and readers couldn't go anywhere else for news.

But with thousands of partisan media options online, on the radio and on cable TV, folks who cleave to a single point of view can get it, without the hassle of having to slog through the other side's. And readers who want a recitation of both sides' views can find that simply by clicking to each.

What's left for journalism, then? How about to use the skills of a social scientist to look at what he said, and what she said, then to show readers who actually is telling the truth?

That's how journalists can motivate readers to click. But better, sharper reporting won't be enough. We also need to use our reporting skills to identify what bloggers, Tweeters and discussion board leaders can help us spread the word.

Go find the top bloggers and discussion board leaders talking about your beat. Read them, then, after awhile, e-mail them, introduce yourself and start sending them relevant links. Invite them to review and comment on your work.

And when they do, reward them. Mention their comments on your blog and in your "second-day" news reports. (If they catch errors, acknowledge them and give your readers the credit for the catch.) Use Facebook pages, javascript widgets, feed scrapers and other tools to help readers spread your words, and to connect easily with other readers who are doing the same.

The last thing that newsrooms ought to be doing in this media environment is punishing people who write about our work, whether it be with threats, ridiculous licensing fees or lawsuits. But that's too often been the response from news managers who are locked into a pre-Internet mindset about how intellectual property gets and keeps its value.

With each repetition of our work, the echo grows louder. More readers start paying attention. Influence, and value, grows. Eventually, with enough repetition and enough penetration into enough social networks, good journalism can once again reach the ears of those readers who long ago left their local newspaper for partisan talk radio, blogs and cable news.

But if journalists ever want to get to that ideal, we can't continue to report, to write and to publish like we did in a non-interactive media world. We need make the echo chamber work for us. To do that, we need the public's help.

Audience interactivity is not a gimmick, or an option, for modern journalism. It is an essential component for assuring journalism's continued relevance in society.

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