Changes at CBC News

Proposed changes in CBC News have generated alot of commentary. For me, it comes down to this:

There is a divide in media, how it is created and how it is consumed.

The traditional audience is still there, people who simply want to sit back and let media wash over them. They tend to be older and so the numbers for this audience go down daily. Many (perhaps most) don't even have a computer, or if they do they use it for work and that's about it - send some emails, make a power point presentation etc.,

This is the audience that many media people are used to dealing with. They simply consume media, they like it, or they don't, they are uninvolved and anyone who works in media, in any capacity, is as far removed from them as Tom Cruise or Oprah. There is a recognized wall between the two. There seem to be many in media who like it this way and would do anything possible to get it to remain this way.

Then there is the new audience, they do not just sit back and consume (although they consumer it ravenously - up to 20 hours of media a day), they are involved. They frequently create their own content. They ask questions and give feedback to those who create content. They don't recognize the wall between themselves and content creators and if they find a wall they will frequently just turn around and ignore whatever is on the other side of it (for those of you in media that means turning off your program.) They not only have a computer, they have an iPod, perhaps video iPod, cell phone, digital camera ... This audience tends to be younger, but it is not just kids - there are many people 40, 50 and up joining this group and is growing rapidly.

This is the audience that media people have to get used to. The wall is gone. Just imagine your cube, edit suite etc., being right out on the sidewalk where people feel free to come up and put in their 2 cents. It is the kind of access the new audience expects and if they are denied, if they are shut out and not responded to they will simply walk away and create their own media (though the quality varies all they really need is a computer).

Does that mean that professional journalists or television producers, or radio hosts are a thing of the past? Hardly. As I said, the new generation consumes more media than ever. But it does mean that you have to have a different relationship with your audience than you did before. It means that you have to face your audience on a regular basis and take seriously what they have to say about your work. You have to build community within your audience. Ideally, it means that the content you produce is thought provoking enough that users will generate their own content (blogs. links etc) based on yours so that their friends will visit yours as well.

What was called for yesterday, as I understand it, was not citizen journalism (citizens doing the job of journalists) but civic journalism: According to Wikipiedia

The civic journalism movement (also known as public journalism) is an attempt to abandon the notion that journalists and their audiences are spectators in political and social processes. In its place, the civic journalism movement seeks to treat readers and community members as participants. With a small, but growing following, civic journalism has become as much of an ideology as it is a practice.

Which is exactly what I'm talking about, and exactly the right move - a project that should have been started already.

Now...about bringing back Zed