Chapter 10 discusses using journalism as a conversation. The key aspect in the chapter was the influence the audience now has using an online medium.
The chapter distinguishes how there seems to be a division amongst journalists. There are journalists who are trying to adapt to incorporating the audience as much as possible while still upholding their professional responsibility.
However, there are still journalists who feel they are above the audience in terms of distributing information and reporting on it.
Regardless, it is inevitable that the audience has a defining role in journalism. This has both positive and negative consequences.
Here are the positives:
• The audience can establish a personal connection with the writer by either commenting or sending them a personal message such as when The Philadelphia Inquirer’s John Gonzalez goes through his mailbag or has a question and answer session each week.
• It allows readers to see counter arguments to the opinion of the writer in an editorial piece.
Here are the negatives:
• Some comments can be very distasteful and despicable. An example of this can be seen on people’s reaction to Allen Iverson leaving the Philadelphia 76ers.
• It brings up First Amendment debate. The chapter indicates to monitor all posts. However, do we as journalists have the right to censor someone’s opinion on a public post? It technically would violate that commenter’s right to free speech. It is certainly an interesting issue to debate.