(Psst ... Executive summary: You can just jump to the end of this overly-earnest post and send me a blog name).
How can any journalist ignore their audience?
Believe it or not, many do. Usually those J-types have two basic outlooks: "I'm interested in it, so everyone else will be too!" and "I am a better judge of what's important than readers are."
God bless self-importance.
One reason I love Internet journalism is that I have the opportunity, thanks to a bunch of gizmoids, to see immediately what people are interested in and reading. Instant ratings ... as opposed to the days and weeks that TV and newspapers need to figure out how many people paid attention (and those numbers are very iffy). My instant ratings give me an indication about how well we're serving our customer ... that'd be you. Now you can argue about how much attention we should pay to those numbers ... but ignore them? Never.
Ignoring direct communication from readers is another big no-no. And, yes, I know a lot of journalist types who do that too.
Feedback is what a large part of what the Internet is about. Which is my long-winded way of introducing this blog to you. It's an opportunity for us to have a discussion. I'll tell you what's going on with the site. You can tell me whether you like it or not. And why. My counterpart on the TV side of the operation, Tyler Mathisen, will weigh in from time to time as well.
Will every email get answered? No. But we'll make an honest attempt to listen and respond in some way or another. Unless you are rude. (I hate that).
So here it is. Let's talk.
Oh yeah ... first thing. A name for this blog. There's some sort of Internet imperative that blogs have to have edgy, maybe cute, names. We can't think of one. The ones we thought of, frankly, were lame. "Inside CNBC" sounds PR generated, "CNBC and You" sounds like a hug-fest and "Sound Off" sounds off. Got any suggestions? If you come up with a good one, maybe we'll send you a tchotchke or something.
