Your noise is my signal — or is it the other way around?

Michael Hirschorn is an Atlantic magazine contributing editor whose monthly column is required reading here.

His December, 2007 effort, entitled "The Pleasure Principle," was his contribution to the ever-growing pile of opinions on why newspapers in their MSM, ink-on-paper format have what we in medical circles call "the dwindles."

From the piece:

The Most Popular function serves as a shadow front page, highlighting what readers find interesting enough to send along to their friends or blog about, as opposed to what the editors want them to read.


Instead, the most e-mailed lists, despite a smattering of parochial concerns, were a rich stew of global affairs, pop culture, compelling narrative, and enlightened localism. In short, they were interesting. What they were not, generally, was important, at least not in the grand tectonic geopolitical sense.


Nevertheless, based on my very unscientific analysis, what readers think is interesting and what editors think is important tends to overlap less than one-quarter of the time.


What unites the most e-mailed list (and, granted, it's hard to draw a single through through stories about parrots, nuns, and Dumpter-diving foodies) is uniqueness.


The real value now lies in non-commodificable virtues like deep reporting, strong narrative, distinct point of view, and sharp analysis, which even in the blogger era (or especially in the blogger era) is available only piecemeal.


By "pleasurable," I mean stories that are just fun to read.


... a high-low mix of agenda-setting reportage and analysis, strong storytelling on topics not being covered everywhere else, and saucy, knowing takeouts on people the readership actually cares about.


The old front page assumed your interest; the new front page would earn it.