What the people want

Great wee story, tenuously linked to citizen journalism, highlighted at Poynter.org,

Conventional wisdom states that news sites must update to attract readers. Well, quite the opposite happened on Norway's site Bergens Tidendes (bt.no) this week.

Instead of giving heavy coverage to the recent Scandinavian Big Brother finale (in Swedish), bt.no decided that an ultra-short and to-the-point article (in Norwegian) would suffice -- adding that they probably would not be updating...

...The whole article reads: "Jessica won Big Brother. Jessica is 21 years old and comes from Kalmar. The first prize is one million Kroner. Bt.no probably won't come back with more."...

...after having been e-mailed between friends and referred in other media, it attracted 25.000 readers during Tuesday, according to NA24 Propaganda (Norwegian).That kind of readership is usually reserved for much bigger stories and happenings on Bergens Tidendes.

Says Bergens Tidendes news editor Anne Gjerde: "We have never had so many readers for such a short article."

As popular as reality TV shows are, it is refreshing to see one news site take a stand, discard sheepmode and report only what needs reporting and free up space for more interesting and important stories. Unless that is, the front pager on that day was a 'cat in a tree' piece - I'm afraid my Norwegian is rather rusty to understand the website - But bravo, Bergens Tidendes.