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April 3, 2012, 10:13 a.m.
LINK: www.patspapers.com  ➚   |   Posted by: Joshua Benton   |   April 3, 2012

NY1’s Pat Kiernan notes that The Wall Street Journal’s email news alert for last night’s NCAA men’s basketball championship didn’t give away the winner. It just said “NCAA Championship Results: Kansas vs. Kentucky,” which meant the Journal decided not tell readers what it knew (namely that Kentucky won). Kiernan likes it:

Presumably, the Journal was thinking about those who may be watching the program on a DVR and are a little behind “real time.” Obviously you can only insulate yourself from the NCAA score or the Oscar winner for a few hours, but it’s nice to have a paper working with, and not against you.

The Journal also, presumably, got some free pageviews out of it from curious alert-getters clicking through.

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The media becomes an activist for democracy
“We cannot be neutral about this, by definition. A free press that doesn’t agitate for democracy is an oxymoron.”
Embracing influencers as allies
“News organizations will increasingly rely on digital creators not just as amplifiers but as integral partners in storytelling.”
Action over analysis
“We’ve overindexed on problem articulation, to the point of problem admiring. The risk is that we are analyzing ourselves into inaction and irrelevance.”