Why local journalism needs to build better audiences, not just newsrooms

So, I’m kind of in a weird place. As a  one-time newspaperman trying to work my way back into journalism, I read yesterday’s piece from Harvard University’s Nieman Lab with guarded enthusiasm:

A Boston Globe memo puts the spotlight on an emerging consensus on how to transform metro papers

The idea that seems to be catching on for metro papers is to place the news that readers want in front of their faces wherever they are and all the time. And I get that. These storied journals have finally accepted the fact that, eventually, the last buggy was going to break down, and no one was  going to want their whips ever again.
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