Thanks you both for sharing your insights.

One definite positive from all this is that no one (political parties, causes, etc.) is going to be able to claim that “the media” controls any sort of agenda.

You got me there. I’m not really sure my decision-making process is that much different. After all, I would be out of a job if I wasn’t driven to make our website and magazine as widely read as possible.

After posting, I was actually musing to myself on how the web really hasn’t changed things that much. Print editors pick front page leads based on what they think will be big sellers or those that will keep their regular readers coming back.

I guess the key difference with the web is the speed with which editors can now find out how correct their hunch was and switch their news agenda accordingly. (Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) our current website analytics setup is too cumbersome for me to have time to go and find out each morning which stories were most popular, meaning we can pursue stories we think are important, whether our wider audience agrees or not.

Sometimes this pays off. For instance, we were writing about the dangers the online behavioural targeting row posed to research in terms of damaging new legislation at a time when nearly all researchers we spoke to were saying it wasn’t of concern to them – and the monthly web stats we did see seemed to tally with that. Now, of course, the MRA has flagged the possibility of new online privacy legislation as one of the key issues to watch this year, Kantar Group has appointed its first chief privacy officer, and I guess that won’t be the end of it.

In this instance, we made a decision about what was important which went against the value judgement made by the majority of our readers. Were we wrong to have done so? And will we continue to do so when we get a better analytics package?

- I agree with your statement “the web has made it so that editors deem what’s important as what delivers them the most hits or comments – rather than what deserves to be most widely read.” So I’m curious, since you’re a news editor, how your approach differs?

Now since we’re talking about “Who Decides what News is Important?” I think it’s only fair to say, being the online media ninjas that we are, we are guilty by association and are a product of our environment. Without covering your eyes when waiting for the cnn.com web pages of the world to load, there’s no fail proof way when consuming non-partisan and non-biasely chosen headlines/stories to make our own decisions as individuals. I think this is relative to the idea of voting with your pocketbook when you shop at a physical grocery store, in the end it’s up to the individual what’s best, regardless of the value judgements made by top level execs and editors.

Will Smith said it best – don’t hate the player, hate the game.

I love this question as it begs for the only answer I know to give: YOU DECIDE what news is important and only YOU. I think the only reason the massess become the masses is because of the same numbskull attitude you and I both shared when flocking to the cnn’s of the world for our daily fix – much the same way I flock to Tully’s every morning for a cappuccino, I remain guilty in that respect. Rock on with the twitter feeds!