Anna Tarkov knows how to create thought-provoking content. A quick glance at her Twitter page offers up gems like this:

“Wow, this CSI: NY dialogue is AWFUL. Is this show still making new episodes?”

Followed by: “Also... An extremely straight service guy told me hats are coming back. He said he saw a segment about that on TV. #Igiveuponthemedia!”

Witty, yes, but that’s only half the story. Besides entertaining her 5,500-plus Twitter followers, the journalist also regularly comments on the evolution and future of news. She started a regular series on her site called “What Do News Consumers Really Think?” — aimed at raising and answering questions about how people’s news habits continue to change amid a content-filled world. Tarkov has conducted eight interviews so far, posting the first back in June. She's picked the brains of young and older news consumers, each with their own unique insights.

She admits that her sample and questions are unscientific, but her ongoing articles provide interesting insights nonetheless. The idea to peg news consumers with questions, in hopes of receiving answers, seems so profound, yet simple. We turned the table on her, and asked a few questions of our own, after being so intrigued by her series of interviews. What follows is a condensed version of our e-mail interview. To find the longer version, head over to my Scribd account. Our questions are in bold.

How did you get the idea to start the interviews?

I wrote [in her first post of the series]: "I found my first interviewee, Bob Meinig, on Twitter. He replied to something I posted and that got the discussion going. It then moved to e-mail and that's when I came up with the weekly series idea."

To expand on that, the exchange with Bob was when it suddenly dawned on me that myself and other media geeks were probably not the only ones with opinions about journalism and the news. Having attended countless conferences and panel discussions on journalism in crisis, I began to realize that the opinions of "regular people" were what was most sorely needed. Like you said, it's an idea that's so simple and yes so profound all at the same time.

What have you learned from the series?

What I've learned from the series so far can somewhat be found in my comments inside the interviews themselves. To sum up, I've learned that, for instance, educated, intellectually curious people are very media savvy and are all amateur media critics like me. I realize of course that it's not exactly a scientific sample since I find most of my interviewees through Twitter which is a virtual media cocktail party. However, I think these people are representative of a larger population (spanning all age groups) which is technologically advanced, analytic, etc. These people are not passive consumers of anything, including their news.

...It's apparent that people are looking for deeper analysis of the daily news, especially from newspapers.

Other insights so far are that it's apparent that people are looking for deeper analysis of the daily news, especially from newspapers. They are increasingly getting the breaking, "hot off the presses" stuff online and when (and if) they read a newspaper (even online) they are looking for context and insight that they can't find elsewhere. The last part is crucial. People are looking for unique content they can't find anywhere else and too many news outlets are giving them the same thing with no added value.

You bring up the point that you know your approach is unscientific. However, it still has provided valuable feedback for anyone in the news business or anyone interested in how media consumption has evolved. What ways do you think media organizations can capture the same sort of insight?

Absolutely my approach is unscientific. So far all of my interviewees have come from Twitter. So these are folks who are already pretty plugged in digitally, are bloggers in some cases, etc. But the fascinating thing for me has been the similarities among them despite their ages ranging from 23 to 66. They've also ranged in income level, geographic location, occupation and other factors. So while this is an entirely unscientific sample, I think it gives a great snapshot. What's most important, and what I keep stressing in every interview, is how much I believe that the people I'm talking to are the ones publishers need to woo. These people are intellectually curious, voracious consumers of media and they have the financial means to support it with either their spending on advertisers or directly paying for content.

You mention that news consumers want more original content, especially from their local news organizations. However, the focus on breaking news and quick-hit stories seems to be a cultural thing for many news operations. How do you think journalists and newsroom leaders can turn that around?

First off, I think people want original content at both the local and national levels. Heck, everyone on the Internet wants original content, right? Who wants to read something they've already seen in 10 other places? I would argue that original content is pretty much second nature at the local level (who else will care about something in, say, a Chicago suburb other than the media there?) It is at the national level where news agencies are often duplicating one another without adding much value to a story or taking a fresh angle on it. What I think a lot of "old media" people don't understand is that the web values uniqueness and it also rewards it. I wrote an open letter to the Washington Post ombudsman that touches on these points.

How I think media organizations can capture the same insight is by basically to do what I'm doing within their newsrooms. A great example is the Chicago Tribune's TribNation blog. I happen to know James Janega, the reporter who runs it, and I think he's doing a phenomenal job. In conversations with a few other Trib staffers I learned what was already obvious to me: that when they planned to launch TribNation, they took extreme care to choose someone who would be really committed to its success and was the right person for the job.

If you look through the blog, you'll see why I like the effort. The posts are done not only by James, but by many other reporters in the newsroom. They invite people into their stories and ask them what they think. They ask for ideas and suggestions. There are often polls. They hold in-person meetups, from big social ones to small ones focused on specific issues where people can talk directly with reporters and editors. They talk about new editorial features, both in print and online. The best thing is that the dialog is at a fairly high level.

No gimmicky silliness that you see so often in the way media orgs relate to their audience, but serious, straight talk. This goes a long way towards humanizing a large media organization that can seem, from the outside, very impersonal and monolithic. Finally, what this is working towards and, I think, accomplishing is creating the transparent newsroom of the future. Transparency breeds loyalty and respect, especially for news organizations who are trying to hold other people to account. If they are not themselves trying to be transparent, it's very hypocritical.

Every news organization, no matter its size, should be able to mount a similar effort. If a full-time person can't be allocated for this, then everyone needs to pitch in to make it happen. And of course reporters must themselves be available and open to conversation with their readers whether it's over e-mail, on social networks, etc.

Republishing of stories done by another news agency without adding anything of value needs to stop.

To expand on this a bit more, news organizations of all sizes need to take national stories and contextualize them for the people in their town, city or region. This happens to some degree already, but I believe it needs to happen a great deal more. Republishing of stories done by another news agency without adding anything of value needs to stop. When news organizations do that, they devalue and erode their brand. An analogy I can think of involves food. People will keep going back to the same restaurant if they serve an amazing unique dish that no one else does, but you can get a cheeseburger almost anywhere so it's really difficult (but not impossible) to differentiate yourself if all you're giving people is cheeseburgers.

As far as turning around the breaking news model, I want to be clear here and say that breaking news is an important part of a newsroom's output and many people are indeed looking for that kind of content on, say, Twitter. What I think needs to happen is that other news content, everything that's NOT breaking, needs to be promoted a lot more. For instance, many news orgs' Twitter feeds are set to automatically spit out the breaking news stories. But are they also posting the meaty, longer pieces that are often great conversation starters? Are they posting all the updates to the breaking news story even? What I've been getting from my interviewees is that they're accustomed to the 24-7 news cycle, but not everything is a breaking story and news orgs need to recognize that. They also need to recognize that the same news junkies who love to follow breaking news also usually love enterprise journalism. Don't alienate these people by only giving them half of your content. These folks are either already or potentially your most loyal readers. Finally, when breaking news stories develop into something bigger, there should be some linkage between the breaking piece and the fully fleshed out story. That way a reader can follow the story's development. Every possible place the breaking story appears need to be updated with the full story. Some news orgs do this, some don't.

Many of your interviewees seem hungry for context, or greater understanding and insight into what they’re reading. What are some simple steps journalists can take to start providing more of it on their sites?

YES. This seems to be almost everyone's top complaint. And again, these are smart people who take the time to do research on their own so they are frustrated when they see inaccuracies or poor context in news reports. News orgs should be very concerned about this. If smart, curious people are unhappy with the level of detail, then imagine how others feel. Or worse yet, others may not even stop to think about the details and form many incorrect conclusions. I think of journalists as the great explainers, along with teachers for instance. It is our job and our duty to explain the world to our audience and explain it more than just superficially. So often I read a story and think, yes, but what does this mean? Why does it matter? Why should I care? How will this possibly affect my life? What can I take away from this? Of course this is complicated by the fact that journalists are often pressed for time and not experts in the fields on which they are reporting. That's all good and well, but don't pretend in the story like you understand an issue if you don't and make sure what you are reporting is an accurate characterization of a situation as much as possible. If you don't have all the information, be honest about that. Suggest further reading your audience can do to bone up on a subject and link to it if it's an online piece. If you talk to a scholar or scientist, maybe post the full transcript of the interview or the audio. If you have a very specific audience, enlist their help in accurately reporting on a topic that they might know about. Journalists might think offhand that this makes them look stupid and clueless, but what it actually does is make them seem human. Nobody knows everything about everything. Be upfront about that.

From a strategic business perspective, find out what sort of information is valuable to your audience (or an under-served audience out there) because that kind of content is what keeps people coming back.

From a strategic business perspective, find out what sort of information is valuable to your audience (or an under-served audience out there) because that kind of content is what keeps people coming back. Maybe you could even charge for it if it's truly something unique that can't be found elsewhere. The example that always comes to mind for me is Rich Miler's Capital Fax (which really started out as a fax). There's some free content as you can see, but many, many political insiders, lobbyists, etc. pay an annual subscription fee for Rich's reporting on the Illinois statehouse which is virtually unmatched by anyone else. This is critical information that people actually need in order to do their jobs well and they're willing to pay for it. Financial publications are another example of this. The reason they can get away with charging for content online is that, surprise, it's good, valuable content. If what you're doing can be easily replicated by dozens of others, people won't pay for it. So you see, context and detail is not just important from the standpoint of doing a good job informing people — it can be lucrative as well.