Part of the challenge has been the process of simply updating our online infrastructure to allow for greater public participation, but we’re beginning to make some progress. In the meantime, some of the shows have begun launching Facebook presences to give users another venue to offer input and discuss things among themselves. These activities, of course, just scratch the surface of what we’re planning on doing, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re just warming up.

As Jeff has said on numerous occasions, the power of magazines that they’ve squandered is their community. OtM could be much more than a 1-hour program if it wanted to be. It could be a franchise that expanded upon its foundation.

Point definitely taken. Getting listeners involved, and taking that involvement to entirely new levels, is key to On The Media’s mission. In fact, we are already at work developing deep projects that tap the power of our audience — and you will see the fruits of these efforts in the coming months.

I was happy you mentioned the Brian Lehrer team’s early crowdsourcing efforts, which we are continuing to prototype and expand on — not only within the BL show, but also our new national morning show, our newsroom, and of course, OTM.

It makes sense for OTM to peel away layers of the media-making onion even with our own show … and it’s good to remember that to get people involved, sometimes all we have to do is ask.

John Keefe

Executive Producer, On The Media

and Senior Executive Producer for News, WNYC Radio

I was struck by one one of the guests said, namely that if ever single newspaper and book printing on dead trees were suddenly available only online, the result would be an vastly improved environment.

Thank about it. Not only would much of the logging end, so would the environmentally hazardous process of milling and pulping trees. There would be no need to transport all that lumber and paper by truck and train. Think of all the landfill space that would open up all of the sudden.

And consider how it would democratize the publishing world. Suddenly owning a printing press would NOT make one a gatekeeper. Everyone would be able to be a publisher.

The only thing stopping it would be the sentiment I heard expressed over and over on OTM: “Doggone it. I like to turn pages.”

I think they can keep their point of view, and at the same time open it up a little bit. They could benefit from learning stuff viewers send their way they don’t even know about that will support their point of view.

I think OtM does what they do well BECAUSE it’s a tight-knit group of relatively like-minded people putting it together. If hundreds or thousands of people started having their say into how each and every interview gets edited, each and every story is researched, each and every story is selected for the show, I think it would loose the focus that makes it so informative and engaging now.

As a media producer myself, I certainly would love to get a lot more feedback than I do. But I think my job would be unwieldy if I opened every step of the process up to a committee.

OtM is better than most of the media it covers because they take a jaundiced view of much of what passes for “objective” reporting. This is their basic theme: the media could do better.

It would dilute their message to give illustrations that are counter examples. Furthermore the threats (in this case to book publishing) are much greater than the successes of new initiatives and they may feel that, given the limited amount of time they have, the dangers need to be covered exclusively.

This isn’t to say that you aren’t right that the press should be soliciting more input from its audience.