"Read what they read"

Submitted by Jim Brown on August 28, 2008 - 8:44pm

When I logged into Google Reader today, I got a message that I could read what journalists and what people from the Obama and McCain campaigns are reading. So, I subscribed and started reading "what they read":

Today we're announcing Google Power Readers in Politics: leading political journalists and both U.S. presidential campaigns using Reader to read and share news. You can read what they read, and see what's on their minds as they share and discuss news. Each participant has created a reading list with a feed you can subscribe to in Reader (or any other feed reader), and is also publishing shared items.

So far, it's been interesting to read the journalist's take on various news items, and it's been much less interesting to read the campaigns' takes on things (typical spin doctoring).

I find the whole idea really interesting, considering that journalists have lost a good bit of ground in terms of being our main news filters. New media have changed the role of journalists in a lot of ways, and Google's "read what they read" seems to be a way for journalists to reassert some expertise. But this is more than some sort of paranoia about losing power. Journalists do have information and experience that makes them a particularly qualified to point our eyeballs to the important stuff.

I'd suggest subscribing to this feed and reading the blurbs that journalists are posting along with these stories. This is evidence that journalism is not "dead." It just needs to reinvent itself.

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