The first misconception, Niles feels, is that “today’s audience suffers from too-short attention spans.” He gives the example of 870,652 kids reading the 759 page Harry Potter books, many of them reading it in one weekend. He explains that it is competition for time and content, not attention spans that are the problem. “People won’t waste a moment on garbage,” he says. There is so much good content on the Internet and therefore, no room for dull reports. He says, “It’s not the readers’ attention spans that are at fault. It’s your content.”

The next misconception, Niles says, is “You can’t get too detailed, or you’ll lose your audience.” He explains that there are many readers out there who want just the details and do not want to be slowed down by basics that they already know. If a journalist doesn’t want to leave new readers in the dark, Niles suggests the use of hyperlinks to do the explaining and teaching. Niles says “an editor who chases them [readers who want the basics] by directing staff to dumb down their reporting risks losing their far more loyal audience of devotees.”

The final misconception reported by Niles is that “Journalists don't know math. Heck, most people don't know math, either, so journalists don't need to bother.” Niles gives examples of people understanding math in articles about fantasy football leagues and calorie counting. He says, “if you put math (or anything else) in a context that readers can understand, well, they understand.” He says they will understand stories about “profiteering in Iraq” for example if it is put in the context of their lives.

Niles feels “there is a proven audience out there for long, complex reports loaded with data. Our audience is not the collection of attention-challenged simpletons that too many of us have assumed it to be. To connect with that audience, however, journalists must report thoroughly, write with authority and place all information in their reports into a context relevant to readers' personal lives.”

Source: Online Journalism Review