Media Wish List 2023

In no particular order…

1A 101. It’s time America got serious about educating the public on freedom of speech, both the rights and the responsibilities contained within the First Amendment. Humble suggestion: Let’s start by enrolling the tech giants who clearly think they get it but oh-so-don’t. 

A Label Baby Jr. in the stockings of news execs everywhere. Here’s the thing: The public assumes anyone seated behind a desk is a journalist. Please start labeling screens across the land, and help people distinguish between reporters, anchors, talk-show hosts, comedians, and whatever else is out there. The same holds for print and online, where news, commentaries, columns, and analyses all look alike, but are distinctly different. Warning: Helping your audience navigate your news may increase your credibility. Is it worth the risk?

Anybody got a pin? Can we burst the media bubble and reacquaint media types with real people and what’s happening across America? When and why news and its audience became an us-versus-them scenario requires a bit of fuzzy math to figure out, so let’s just fast-forward to the new year. Drop the anchor teams in some cornfields in middle America and let them find their way back. The Manolos might get a bit scuffed, but it would make for some interesting storytelling. 

Speaking of techies… Just because your digital team has the skills to blast out each and every story under the guise of “breaking news,” doesn’t mean they should. Seriously. Stop that.

Penalty box. Pulling media types off the air out of concern for possible violation of corporate policy is a right of the employer. But the action raises a bigger question: Why aren’t we pulling people off the air or benching the print journalists when they get the story wrong?