This is a bit of a personal post, for I’m about to change something that’s been with me for years. Effective with my next essay, which will likely be published later today, I’m changing the title of the series from “TV News in a Postmodern World” to “Local Media in a Postmodern World.” I want to explain to you why.

When I first started writing about new media, I stayed within my comfort zone, television news. After all, I’d been a news manager for 28 years before retiring in 1998 and getting into the Internet. I could see where things were going and tried to shout warnings, although I have to admit that few people were listening.

I wrote about the news business and journalism’s history. I argued objectivity versus argument and became a voice on some level in the discussion of journalism’s evolution.

However, when I began consulting, the question from media companies was always, “Where’s the money?” Hence, my emphasis has changed over the years, and this is especially so since joining AR&D in the summer of ‘06. The reality is that professional journalism needs money to do its thing, so following the money — the business side of media — became my passion.

More and more, my writing began to reflect this. I didn’t really drift away from journalism as much as I drifted towards the business of news — and that includes broadcasting AND print.

So I’m changing the name. Besides, I think “Local Media in a Postmodern World” will make a better book title. Don’t you?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.