Cape Town Conference: appreciating reader intelligence
Posted by Jackie Bischof on June 6, 2007 at 3:14 PM
To compete with other media, newspapers must recognize the intelligence of their readers and help them to understand the news. This was the view of sociologist Denis Muzet, Director of the French Mediscopie Institute, in his presentation at the 14th World Editors Forum in Cape Town.
Muzet spoke as a “representative of the reader” in a panel on ‘balancing ethics, transparency and independence in the newsroom’.
He argued that newspapers needed to assist readers in their understanding of the news and of world events, instead of assuming that they were getting “the whole picture”.
Muzet said that media consumers had become anxious and frustrated from an overload of media sources, resulting in “global media indigestion”. He said that the consumer, who is not trained as a critical media analyser, was forced to examine the “puzzle in progress” that is news, with only “50 pieces out of a 1000-piece puzzle”.
Journalists needed to assist in reader understanding by “being good teachers, comparing, analysing, putting the information into context ... with clarity and honesty.”
By doing this, newspapers would be responding to the reader’s need to get “the full story” and help them become “victorious over the massive tsunami of information and be back in control of his or her own world.”
By Jackie Bischof, Wits University Journalism
He argued that newspapers needed to assist readers in their understanding of the news and of world events, instead of assuming that they were getting “the whole picture”.
Muzet said that media consumers had become anxious and frustrated from an overload of media sources, resulting in “global media indigestion”. He said that the consumer, who is not trained as a critical media analyser, was forced to examine the “puzzle in progress” that is news, with only “50 pieces out of a 1000-piece puzzle”.
Journalists needed to assist in reader understanding by “being good teachers, comparing, analysing, putting the information into context ... with clarity and honesty.”
By doing this, newspapers would be responding to the reader’s need to get “the full story” and help them become “victorious over the massive tsunami of information and be back in control of his or her own world.”
By Jackie Bischof, Wits University Journalism
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