The news was startling: President Kennedy was reported shot during a motorcade in Dallas. Walter Cronkite of CBS Evening News was having trouble finding a clear phone line for an outgoing call. In the newsroom, he picked up one of the lines, but a caller was already live. From his autobiography, A Reporter's Life:
I reported (ed: can you imagine how many times that word appeared in his book?) that she had reached our newsroom.
"I want to complain," she complained, "of your having that Walter Cronkite on the air at a time like this, crying his crocodile tears when we all knew he hated Jack Kennedy."
With all of the outraged dignity I could muster, I told her: "Mrs. Llewellyn-Arbuthnot, you are speaking to Walter Cronkite, and you, madam, are a damned idiot."
One of the first jobs a J-school grad gets is triaging the calls from the newsroom's live line, be it newspapers, radio or TV. What happens on the journey from live line to the news editor is an expression of what was wrong with traditional media, and why Ms. Obie Joe has trouble shedding tears for newspapers who refuse to update themselves to the new media. As in, allowing, and welcoming input from their audiences. The type of derogatory comments and dismissive responses from editors who received the message slips from the live line exampled the 1,001 reasons why traditional media lost their audiences.
Many authors and publishers snapped on to blogs and other social networks as a way to reach out. But regardless of your format, watch your live lines. Treat those who e-mail you, leave comments, and generally reach out with a welcome mat. Many times their feedback and accolades will fuel your own literal lifeline. Granted, sometimes the life lines -- comments, generally -- do get out of hand. The battles among commenters have been brutal for Stephenie Meyer, Haven Kimmel and Jacquelyn Mitchard, and each has either frozen or shut down the participatory parts of their sites in the past year.
But if you are willing to start your line, push that Cronkite button. Gently.
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