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Miami Herald: Today we change

Via BabaluBlog.com comes news of change at the Miami Herald.
From Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler, sent to the Herald staff via e-mail on April 12, 2006:

To the staff,

All of you who have stepped off an elevator into the Miami newsroom in recent days cannot have missed the wall-mounted flat-screen monitor constantly displaying and refreshing the MiamiHerald.com site.

And if you've attended any of the morning or afternoon news meetings, you will have heard an opening discussion about what's on that site, how many hits each article has received, and what's coming to the site later in the day.

These may seem like the incremental markings of evolutionary change, mere head-nods toward on-line as we continue to think of ourselves as newspaper people first, foremost and -- perhaps for some -- always.

But that cannot continue to be. Today we change. Today, as in NOW.

Make sure to read the entire memo. Val Prieto reacts:

Using the internet and radio and every other source of exposure is fine, but if you really want discerning readers and customers, just cover the news ethically and honestly and keep the biases to yourselves. Dont insult your readers with speculation or innuendo and dont throw in that little statement or jab to "stir up some controversy." We see right through it and the last thing you want to do is insult the very same customer you're trying to attract.

I hope this isnt too much too ask.

And remember there's that new-fangled open source media out here on the net: An Army of Davids monitoring your every move.

Right on, Val! Army of Davids. Maybe the Miami Herald would want to bring some of the BabaluBlog team on board as paid bloggers. That might "stir up some controversy" for sure!

This is why the MSM doesn't get it. Adjusting to the new world and technology is fine, but the problem readers are having has nothing to do with the medium, and everything to do with the outright bias. Let's see what these changes do for them. I'm not holding my breath.

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