Want to Attract More Readers? Try Listening to Them – The Public Editor, By Liz Spyd, July 9, 2016 – “Most journalists I’ve worked with have a reflexive aversion to interacting with readers. They subscribe to the view that editors and reporters have the most cultivated sense of which stories are most important, and which subjects most worthy of attention. Expecting them to consider the opinions of readers when making such journalistic decisions would be akin to asking an artist to produce a masterwork to accommodate the taste of a benefactor. Keeping a good distance from readers worked fine over the last century of newspapering. But now that the monopolistic era of print is giving way to an accelerating stampede of digital, the relationship between newsrooms and their audiences is in a period of manifest change. The leadership at The New York Times, in a shift from the past practice, is aiming to produce a product that consumers have a greater say in creating…”