How can we make news Cool again?

From Aza Raskin’s lecture at the #MozNewsLab on Monday, we learned that
“The real problem is that we don’t understand the problem.”

This sent me into a tizzy – a mental topspin of wondering which problem I’m really seeking to address for the scope of this 4-week class. I felt like Woody Allen, paranoid and self-conscious, attempting to figure out which problem was in fact the real one.

First I asked myself: “Is the topic of this post the right question I need to be asking? What does it mean to make news cool?”

I took a long, slow, sip of my coffee and decided to break it down into baby steps.

Firstly, I thought about what I know.

1. People care about the issues that most closely affect them.
2. They like to share their revelations.
3. There’s never been more news content available to us.

Then I let it simmer.

Yet after banging my head against the wall for a few days, I still didn’t have an idea of where to go.

But what I did have was more questions.

1. How can we unearth great revelations in journalism?
2. How can we create the next generation of stars?
3. The current fire hose of available content makes it difficult to sort, read, process, reflect, and engage. How can we make news a straightforward and relevant experience?
4. How can we make it fun to go to one place and get everything we could ever want?

I ran to the end of the tail, figuring I could chew at both ends of the solution and the problem while fleshing the entire thing out along the way. After all, as we also learned, it’s important to work on iterating on the solution while continuing to get a better grasp on the problem.

Potential Solution:

Something like a Google alert vs. Google News vs. Flipbook vs. PopURLs vs. http://www.nytimes.com/recommendations.

I quickly mocked up a sketch, one that somewhat brought to life my idea, but also something wouldn’t be married to.

I talked myself through some workflow of how the concept could potentially run.

And now, I know that it’s perfectly sane for this to be wrong. All wrong. Yet asking more questions was critical in helping to contextualize where I’m going with this idea. This step was like sketching the shape of a circle in my mind when initially I wanted to draw a line.

To be continued…