Melissa is one of thousands of people who - in just four weeks - has cast her vote in the CYN daily polls.  She's also one of the roughly one hundred die-hard CYN participants that I personally correspond with each and every day.  She may not be a "trained news hound," but she's nowhere close to being "an anonymous yahoo with a laptop." 

So I invited Mr. Brummett to be a guest on the Daily Debrief.  I had hoped to discuss how we can marry the merits of both old and new media. But after reading his latest column, I think he has decided to pass.  His exact words were:  "I need not lend my experience and credibility to draw her a crowd. What I've got to say will be said in these newspaper columns or on my own resurrected and chatty blog to be unveiled soon on a sparkling new Web site."  

First off, let me say that I am pleased to hear that Mr. Brummett is planning a return to blogging.  I regularly read his old blog and was disappointed when it died off in August 2007.  And second, I feel the need to defend our little experiment, so here goes:

1)  The Choose Your News model, when applied to local TV news, is one-of-a-kind.  But the underlying theme of democratizing the media has been happening for some time.  When you have 175,000 new blogs being born every day and nearly ten-thousand new websites an hour, people will pick and choose their news as they please.  Therefore, in order for the mainstream media to remain relevant, it must find a niche.  In local news - whether newspapers, radio, or TV - our niche is our community... and, in my opinion, the best way to capitalize on that niche is to invite the people in that community to contribute.

2)  With that said, KATV is not allowing its viewers to dictate the entire newscast.  We are simply allowing them to choose one, two-minute segment on our six o'clock news.

3) There is no "gimmickry."  At least 90% of the top-three stories every day come straight from viewer suggestions in my inbox.  And there's no need to worry about the losing assignments.  That's where the "trained news hounds" in the newsroom come into play.  If the losing story is deemed newsworthy enough by our news director or executive producer, then it will be assigned to another reporter who can also handle any of the breaking news of the day.  

4) "Don't tell me about the labor pains, just show me the baby," writes Mr. Brummett.  (I'm assuming he's talking about our behind-the-scenes look at the news-gathering process, but I'll go with the metaphor.)  At CYN, we do more than just talk about the labor pains and show the baby.  We are asking people to actually help with the delivery.  Now, before you say, "Whoa, that's dangerous;" we're not asking them to be the doctors, just the residents in training.  You see, I believe that CYN is the next evolution in citizen journalism.  We are continuing the trend of democratizing the media, while still allowing trained journalists to do the real reporting.   After all, the whole purpose of a journalist is to serve the people... and what the majority of CYN participants want, they will get.
 
5) Mr. Brummett agrees that interactivity "is currently all the rage."  Indeed, a new study from the Pew Research Center shows that only 27% of Americans pick up a newspaper, whereas 37% get their news online.  But Mr.Brummett writes as if interactivity is a fleeting trend in the Era of Too Much Information.  It's not.  It's the future.  Once people have been invited to connect and contribute, they will never go back.  If we in the mainstream media don't accept and embrace this increasing interactivity, we run the risk of becoming utterly irrelevant to the very people we are supposed to serve.
 
Let me leave you with this... More than 60% of all the journalism schools in America have "made significant changes to their curriculum in order to keep up with the changing landscape."  If the next generation of journalists is already adopting the technology of the 21st century, then we - the trained new hounds of the world - must do the same.

And yes, I too am a trained news hound... but this dog can still learn new tricks.