Yesterday I wrote a vain hope for survival of the local “news” business. More features, more plain reporting, and especially more service of the type that specialized magazines used to provide. Answer specific questions for paid subscribers. Use local knowledge and local sources INTERACTIVELY, not just shouting Party slogans.
Today Nieman published its annual collection of predictions and hopes by insiders. I’ve been noticing those collections since 2016. Most years were perfectly stupid as expected. This year is a bit better. Several writers appear to grasp part of the problem.
This one proposes a different and less personal form of interactivity.
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Creating an informed public requires adapting to that public’s way of gathering and processing information. It’s also not new. EdTech platforms have spent years solving this exact problem: matching learning material to students’ cognitive states, adjusting explanation density, visual aids, and pacing based on how a student processes information.
Furthermore, this isn’t just cosmetic. When a news organization recognizes you’re cognitively depleted and serves you digestible audio instead of demanding you parse 1,500 words, that’s institutional empathy at scale.
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Long before ed tech, good teachers did the same. They had empathy, noticing who learned visually or aurally or tactilely. The teacher made a variety of methods available. Books, lectures, movies, field trips, job-like experience, tutoring by other students, or being a tutor. Post-1970 mandates make empathy HARDER because each student must be fitted into a specific diagnosis, and specific adaptations must be made for the diagnosis.
The old way was more flexible, allowing for variety and change. Nobody fits into one rigid box, and kids can change fast. The whole point of school is to HELP them change, not to keep them locked inside one set of materials!
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Irrelevant sidenote: The magazine connection came from a random thought path. I noticed people commemorating Lennon’s death today. From there I remembered with some irritation that the Beatles were EVERYWHERE in the 60s. Every general magazine (Life, Look, Newsweek, etc) was all Beatles all the time for 10 years. Only the specialized hobby mags were somewhat exempt from this universality. Then the specialist mags reminded me of the question about news value.
Polistra's Mill 