Nieman Foundation at Harvard
Tarald Aano, editor of Norway’s Stavanger Aftenblad, calls for a new emphasis on explanation in a newspaper’s mission (look past the use of that awful word “edutainment”):
If we write about the Berlin Wall in 2012 without explaining it, many readers under 35 will drop out. If we report news that refers to dead politicians, however important they once were, we close the door for a lot of the people we desperately want to reach. And if we turn the age dimension 180 degrees, when we report on Spotify and Dropbox without giving any hint to our analog audience, we leave our older readers lost in space…
It sounds easy, we know. It sounds obvious, for sure. But do yourself a favour: Listen to the news, read the newspapers and Web sites — and look for explanations. Or, rather, look for all the small information that would open the stories for new audiences. Look for the things missing, the important keys for understanding.
