Just for the record, guys, a skilled writer or editor knows it is not good enough to give the reader what the reader wants. We know we must use our intelligence and experience to give the reader what she needs to know, and to package it in a compelling way. "Reader knows best" is a pathetic ideology, a waste of our talents, and, most important, a surrender of our responsibilities. It's, you know, cheezy.
In the Cheezburger vs. Gene Weingarten "what's journalism" debate, Mr. Weingarten offered the above epistle that resonated significantly with me. At a time when our industry is acting like a chameleon, changing colors at a whim to match with the SEO gods say the people want, it's a critical message. We have a job, as editors, and just giving people what they want isn't doing that job.
Weingarten followed up his comment with this bit: "Steve Jobs, actually, understood this perfectly. His credo was not to give the user what the user says he wants. It's to show the user what he should want. That's our job."
I agree. The challenge, of course, is to figure out a way to do our job and capture new audiences while holding onto the ones we have. But we ought to do that job -- accept that challenge -- rather than just blow with the winds of analytics and SEO.
