If journalists could beg

When we're deeply invested in legacy practices, we want things to remain the same. We can't handle the ground beneath our feet changing. We expect a  large following while we continue to deliver what worked in the past. When followers evacuate our system, loyalists betray their prior cause and consumers change their minds, we get the irrational urge to beg. Here's some of the ways the professionals of Journalism 1.0 might beg for a return to business as usual:

• Please believe in ink on paper. Put your trust in the printed word while viewing "talk as cheap" and "conversations as unreliable".
• Please believe in established authorities. Put your faith in people with power over you who can tell you want to think. Dismiss those "johnny come lately"s".
• Please believe in getting your news from a trusted source. Forget scattering your attention and following a diverse range of voices.
• Please believe in being kept in the dark while the work goes on behind the scenes. View transparent production processes as lurid exhibitionism.
• Please believe in others' assessment of "what is really news". Stop being the judge of what is news to you and what good the news does for you.
• Please believe in getting your news from a closed delivery system. Mistrust news that is generated by collaboration, crowdsourcing or peer to peer processes.
• Please believe in continuing the pretense of being well informed by news clips, articles and serials. Question the value of the online cacophony.

When we news readers and viewers stop believing, the magic that thrilled us goes away. The business model quits working. The value proposition no longer makes sense to us. The urge to beg us to return to what we believed sees the real problem. But there is no turning back the clock.