The great debate over the future of news is missing some voices.
I'm talking about readers, viewers, users, community members -- the people journalism serves.
Their absence from our wither-journalism confabs limits our ability to understand how they value their news experiences -- which is different, I'm learning, than how they value news itself.
I heard a few of these voices recently in
Ann Arbor, where my Poynter colleague
Kelly McBride organized a community conversation about life without a newspaper as part of
training provided by the Online News Association.
To her credit, McBride focused on areas "where other organizations can step in and serve the community" rather than bemoaning the loss of the
Ann Arbor News, which shut down on July 23.