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Online news 'failing to meet demands of the audience'

Posted: 27/11/07 By: Laura Oliver
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Traditional media is failing to provide its online readership with enough interaction, according to the consulting editor of Yoosk.

Speaking to Journalism.co.uk Nick Ryan said insufficient interactive content is provided by the leading news outlets, perpetuating the traditional model of top-down, received information.

Online news coverage, he said, needed to move to a position which allows the reader a far greater voice and to have their questions answered.

"There are a lot of [news] sites only offering a comment on a story or vote on a story, conversely there's also a lot of blogging which either isn't of great quality and/or no one reads it," said Ryan.

"The [better] idea is to sit in between where traditional journalism has been, which some people might see as talking at the viewer or reader, and where some of the new media approaches are going at the moment."

Greater interaction with readers, he added, would help traditional news providers tap into reader's core interests.

Filling this void of interaction, said Ryan, was part of the inception of Yoosk - a service developed so users could put questions to public figures involved in news issues, augmented with a team of professional and citizen journalists to push for answers.

More interactive services, he added, would also foster a better general understanding of current affairs by 'leaping over the hurdles of managers, spin doctors and agents'.

"There are so many people sitting around the world who get frustrated because they can't put questions directly but have to rely on traditional news sources to do it for them," he said.

"It [traditional news] might give an overview for someone like myself, but for someone who knows the situation in-depth, there's a huge gap."

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