The Editor as 'Point Guard of Readership'

Much is made of the need for editors in this digital age. I've always argued that this new age increases the need for strong editors in order to bring clarity to the chaos of information at people's disposal. New media and media consumption patterns dictate that editors direct how messages are delivered.

I use the term "point guard of readership," borrowing the term from the late Rich Somerville, a California newspaper publisher. He used the term to describe his "readership editor," which was a position designed to help the newspaper become more outward-focused. The intent was for the point guard to guide efforts to become more reader-centric and relevant to those who picked up the paper. In my analogy, the point guard takes the information to be delivered, much as the point guard takes the ball, and delivers it in the best possible way to ensure success--success being that the information is consumed and used.

Editors must understand the why behind the platforms they use. Understanding this will enable them to choose the right delivery platform (or sequence of platforms) to deliver the information...in the same way a point guard decides whether to shoot, pass, drive or even call time out.

We recently published a special section on gender equality in education on PTA.org. And I am using this as a test to basically benchmark how to most effectively "score" with our content. I will be analyzing not just web traffic but where the traffic comes from (especially via our Facebook and Twitter posts and our RSS feed). Knowing all I can about the audiences for social media and the web will tell me what to shoot out first and how all of these media work together.

So far, the note on the PTA Facebook page hasn't delivered many readers nor has the Tweet. We still need an RSS push, though traffic has been mixed with this tool--worked well for some pushes, not much for others. However, in another example, Twitter was enormously successful driving traffic to this blog a few weeks ago when a post was picked up by Jeff Jarvis. Editors need to be aware of the benchmarks behind these platforms and what it takes to sucessfully utilize them.

Mindy McAdams writes of clarity of purpose in this Teaching Online Journalism blog post. She urges writers and publications to figure out what they are doing and why they are doing it. My purpose at PTA is clear--get relevant information in the hands of parents. Increasingly, this is done by means beyond the magazine and even beyond the website. The key to the future is unraveling what means readers find most relevant.