Editor vs. reader: who calls the shots?

In an American Journalism Review article next month, we get to revisit whose news judgment should rule, the editor's or the readers.' You know, the old discussion of giving readers what they should know vs. what they want to know.

Because I am old enough to have set type in Gutenberg's shop (well, at least I worked during the hot type era), I remember the days when the news values of the newsroom held total sway. Readers got what they got and that was that. News and information were not looked at as commodities as they are now. The newspaper was simply something you bought without much thought and took it as it was, sort of like water from the tap. And few people above the poverty line even considered not getting a paper or two, much like they would not think twice about hooking up to city water.

Then came the newsroom's "dirty word": marketing. It was only talked about in disgusted whispers. Some simply said the "m-word." Most saw it as turning the paper over to the readers.
Then reality hit. Newspaper circulation went flat, prior to beginning a steady, slow descent.

All sorts of reasons were cited, but few editors were able to face the new reality of the information marketplace: readers had choices. I was one of the slow ones to leave the "m-word" camp, too. But as the net and other technologies have increased their hold on our lives and the market share, it has become obvious that the audience must be catered to.

I don't think this means a dumbing down of the product, as many once feared. It does mean choosing better (and sometimes different) stories, telling better stories and using all the various technologies to their fullest. Cross-pollinate across technologies: drive people to your web site through the print product and drive people to the print product through the web site. And don't forget cell phones, PDAs and iPods. If you do it well and count those people as readers, circulation probably would be UP.

So who calls the shots? The editor must, of course, but s/he must always make decisions with the reader in mind. It's really their product.