Panel discussion: The audience cares
Posted: April 12, 2009 Filed under: Industry, Reflections, Work | Tags: audience, Auntie's Bookstore, Center for Justice, Cheryl-Anne Millsap, Fig Tree Monthly, Get Lit, Inlander, Jim McPherson, John Orr, KYRS, media, Otto Zehm, Pete Bunch, Shonto Pete, Spokane Metro, SPOKE(a)N(e) magazine, spokesman-review Comments OffA panel discussion Saturday taught me a few things about the Spokane media audience. Those who attended are concerned and a little frustrated with the major players, intrigued by the journalism experiments cropping up and healthily skeptical of the information they consume.
The event was at Auntie’s Bookstore as part of the Get Lit! festival. Here’s a link to the official description. (Full disclosure: The panel was moderated by Ryan Pitts, my supervisor at The Spokesman-Review.)
I listened but didn’t speak, and I was rapt for the entire 90 minutes, not all of them comfortably. Almost nobody seemed to think the region’s media ecosystem was healthy, but panelists and audience members took pains to point out what is succeeding. The Spokesman-Review wasn’t mentioned often in this portion.