Like a kid in a candy store

I found out that Slate just opened a French site at slate.fr, and I’ve been like a kid in a candy store. The op-ed articles bring fresh perspectives and address little-talked about issues of the day. They’ve reminded me of why I used to buy Le Figaro, and why I don’t anymore.

More importantly, the attitude of the editors has been very refreshing. In the first couple weeks of existence, the editors clearly insisted on wanting to get letters to the editor and feedback from readers. And the amazing thing is, they actually responded to feedback and discussed future directions with readers. This is where, it seems to me the traditional press is lagging. See, I stopped reading Le Monde and severely decreasing consumption of Le Figaro because of the inaccuracies in the articles. On numerous occasions, I wrote both to the journalists and the ombudsman in order to point out inaccuracies and suggest corrections (e.g, no, the New York Red Sox did not just win the Super Hockey Bowl – and this is barely an exaggeration). But the journalists and the ombudsman never replied, neither did they ever correct the articles in the online version of the paper, which would have been so easy to do.

This is where there may be a generational and cultural gap between a declining newspaper industry and a growing net industry. We are told that the newspapers are not read by youth anymore, because there is no adequacy between what they youth wants and what the newspapers produce. Newspapers may need to immerse themselves in net culture in order to answer new needs of their readers. Maybe it’s not enough to upload the paper online to really be “online.” It’s useless to have an electronic feedback system, if the journalists and the editors and the ombudsmen are autistic. Newspapers have a great opportunity to re-invent themselves and become even better. But it seems to me they also need to accept the fact that old culture put online does not create adequacy. The world is changing, so should the papers.