Digital Media Consultant Susan Mernit has put together a list of things she would like to see news organizations do (2004 Election coverage--What I'd like to see). The list offers up some very interesting improvements, many of which I think would be good ideas, but might be more difficult to implement than is readily considered. I also believe that Google (or a similar company) has quite an opportunity to shake up news media. Read on...

--The New York Times or the Washington Post and Technorati or Feedster=Vox Populi

Why don't we see a major media outlet that will file lots of stories during the election find a way to work with Technorati or Feedster so they can have almost real-time links reflecting people?s comments on--and links to--the stories--right on their web site?

There are few things that I think would be cooler than this. I would love to read a NY Times article and then see who is linking to it and what they have to say. However, implementing this well could actually be quite a bit more difficult than it sounds.

Link spam seems one obvious concern. How many commercial companies would start blogs simply so that they could link to NY Times articles and get what is, in effect, free advertising? Link farms would also spring up to increase the quantity of links and sources (thus increasing the apparent "authority" of particular links). There will be ways to minimize this, but it won't be easy (as Google's struggles against search manipulation demonstrate). Certain minimization strategies may also not be terribly acceptable to the blogging community.

For example, even if the link spam question can be solved, you still have the power law issue. One of the ways to minimize link spam will probably be to rely on some measure of blog authority. This will probably mean that links to the NY Times from bloggers at the top of the power curve will be more likely to appear. This will only cement the power law curve even further. Perhaps this is desirable, but it isn't clear to me that it is.

This is still a great idea, but difficulties abound.

Advance Publications or Tribune and Topix.net=Local depth
Why doesn't a large regional newspaper player, like Advance or Trib, team up with Topix to provide a more complete index of local news stories related to election topics? This would be a great way to complement their coverage--if they could stand linking out to other entities, of course.

Yep. Frankly, I think all newspapers would do well to point to coverage in other media organizations that would complement their coverage. If someone else got the interview, point to it. I like to think of this as the Miracle on 34th Street strategy. In the movie, the Macy's Santa Claus is asked for a particular toy. Macy's doesn't carry that toy. So Kris Kringle tells the parent that the toy is available at Macy's competitor, Gimbel's. In the end, the willingness to best serve the customer makes Macy's the place to go to first.

MTV and Orkut and Live Journal=Community
Why doesn't Rock the Vote tape into the social network space and affiliate with a large, viral network and a youth-oriented blogging service to add more resonance, depth, and community to their program?

Honestly, I just can't get too excited by software like Orkut. Wake me up when it gets interesting.

Fox News or CNN with Blogger and Picasa or Typepad=Citizen Journalism
Why doesn't one of the larger networks and their local affiliates work with a large blogging service and their photo/mobblogging capabilities to create local citizen/journal reporters who can moblog local campaign and election events and do man on the street interviews?

Actually, why does it have to be the news agencies? Why shouldn't local party organizations send out invites to local bloggers as the national campaigns invited bloggers for the national conventions? Why should whoever does this work with Blogger instead of Technorati or Feedster? I'm not so sure about "man on the street" interviews, either. Why not let bloggers be bloggers and figure out what it is that they want to cover?

ALL news entities with Internet Archive and Creative Commons licensing
Why not create an open source media archive for the 2004 election? What if all the major news players decided to cooperate with the Internet Archive and build a multimedia archive for the 2004 election season? And grant a Creative Commons license for use of the materials?

This would be nice, but I don't think it is going to happen. However, I think there is a real opportunity to outflank traditional media here.

Many election events (not to mention general news, such as the War in Iraq, White House Press, etc.) are going to have press pools (a group of journalists who cover an event and then by agreement share their reports with participating news media). My thought? Google (or similar) should join key press pools and make all materials available under a Creative Commons license (such as Attribution/Non-Commercial 2.0) so that bloggers can use the materials for their reports. Joining press pools frequently costs money, but the benefits of fostering the conversation in the blogosphere would very likely be worth it. If Google won't do it, perhaps bloggers could organize enough to fund a "Citizens' Media Press Pool Fund" or similar.

Yahoo or MSN or AOL plus Bloglines or Rojo = Election newsreader
Why doesn't a news-focused portal site team up with one of the new web-based newsreader services to offer a customized and branded newsreader customized with political feeds--a My Yahoo or MSN or My AOL for the elections?

Why indeed? But again, why should a news-focused portal site do it? Why not a news site? Or Technorati? Or one of the parties? Or the League of Women Voters? Of course, selection may be problematic.

Mernit has some good ideas, but we're still barely scratching the surface here. Let's hope this discussion continues and some real progress can be made.

via Dan Gillmor