New York Times Is A Sign Of The Old Timers: User-Driven News Is The Future

So the New York Times needs to borrow against collateral to survive. I’m not surprised. This Sunday, I looked at the big lump of a paper put at my hotel room’s door and sighed. Why bother? I scrolled through my feed links, saw the articles that interested me, read them and moved along.

And really, when you think about it, what IS the news? I didn’t hear about the Bombay attack via the news and the most up-to-date news came via Twitter. The networks were okay for sensational pictures. But really, I was so totally NOT interested in hearing Deepack Chopra’s opining on Larry King or Christiane Amanpour’s two cents, either.

The news should be fact, period. This is what we know. Leave wild speculation to the Twitterverse. Leave the commentary to the experts–people who know their topic cold.

And, my co-blogger John Hawkins wonders why local newspapers are necessary, either. Considering that many papers are just pulling feeds from AP, Reuters, etc. and the local news is “bought’, and by that I mean heavily influenced by advertising dollars, what’s the point?

I foresee a time when individuals will post a news item like on eBay and people will lend credibility to the news story by rating it for: accuracy, readability, timeliness, relevance and trustworthiness or something. The contributor would get a rating. Boom! There you go. User-driven news source that’s more accurate than what we get now. Oh, and the story can get tagged so people can search and find it based on community, topic, etc.

Thoughts?

Cross-posted at MelissaClouthier.com. Follow me at Twitter!

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