Blog 8 (Week 9)

After reading about another on-line website success story, STOMP, it’s really starting to sink in that ‘the times they are a-changin,’ as Bob Dylan once famously sang.

As much as I hate to admit, the younger generation are turning their backs on traditional newspapers and instead, consuming news mostly through the on-line medium.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether these news websites are user-generated content or written by professional journalists.

My attention is turned onto the daily paper I work for, The Standard.  I ponder if upper management is visionary, or it’s head is burrowed in the sand?

  I’ve noticed over the last couple of months, The Standard has introduced a series of blogs written by senior journalists, and incorporated some of its weekly publications into the on-line form.

This is encouraging, considering we have a very conservative readership in Warrnambool who are committed to their local rag.

It shows that management are starting to embrace that the readership habits are changing, and that an on-line presence needs to be established. 

If STOMP is anything to go by, with 5 to 6 million page hits a month, and dare I say, but I think my bosses need to take a good hard look at blending citizens into the journalistic fold. 

What I mean by that is that user-generated content could slot in nicely, helping produce a more interesting and broader mix of news stories. 

Our professional journalistic eyes can’t be in a million places at once, but citizen’s peepers sure can!

Considering I’m vegetarian, this was the first STOMP story that captured my attention.   Check it out here.