Fixing the Feedback Mechanism

As an avid newspaper reader, on and off-line, I do not under-estimate this crisis. Credible resources and procesees are more critical today than ever, considering the fact that my 9-year old cousin can navigate his way and edit a Wikipedia page. Shirky paints an imaginative,yet accurate context of the newspaper industry's uphill battle.

First, legal steps and regulations would inhibit many opportunities of this revolutionary digitalized platform. They would be near impossible to consistently enforce. I, for one, do not feel guilty listening to free music. However, the artists have access to other revenue streams, like concerts and commercial endorsements. Will my $.99 iTunes purchase make a substantial marginal difference in the quality of their work or overall financial well-being?

Spot.us is a respectable piece of an undefined solution. Generally speaking, "going local" is becoming more and more popular with respect to food and businesses. Squeezing the journalist agenda in this green mentality is creative and feasible.

If Wall Street can dream up complicated derivatives to protect themselves against risk, surely the many stakeholders of the world wide web can test remedies to solve this problem. Here is my abstract contribution:

Objective: To save the quality of rigorous reporting and journalism while contributing to the engagement of an informed, affluent society

Strength: The reach of missions, opinions, and the news are boundless.

Weakness(es): Personalized feeds are magnificent, but personally, I get different articles from the same source depending on the mood of my iPhone, web browser, Twitter account, and [gasp] print journal. Sometimes, I think to myself, "how did I miss this one?"

In "The anonymous cruelty of the Web", columnist Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times shines light on state of revolutionized letters to the editor - the message board. They have become "havens for a level of crudity, bigotry, meanness and plain nastiness that shocks the tattered remnants of our propriety," Leonard Pitts Jr. writes.

Opportunity: Structure a feedback mechanism with a design user-interface as friendly as Facebook but meets established benchmarks of quality. Like science publications, these comments could be "peer-reviewed" by editors, staff members, or selected members of the general public. Like the local initiative, this would involve readers in the media "loop" and encourage them to structure their opinion or reply in a respectable, constructive fashion. To be heard, the venue can structure an iTunes like model, in which the reader has an invested interest in the project. Companies and non-profits can sponsor the project, like a scholarship, to give people with less disposable income a voice.

What did Steve Jobs do? In the face of Napster, LimeWire, Kazaa, Windows Media Player, etc. Apple created software and a product line that gained customer loyalty through innovation, brand recognition, and service. Even I, sometimes, pay the $.99 for a song's seamless transition into my iTunes and iPhone.