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Frivolous entertainment is taking over news, readers don't know what they want, and native ads really work—just as George Gallup predicted, nearly nine decades ago.
...George Gallup, the man synonymous with modern political polling, was a University of Iowa student who didn’t think that open broadsheets strewn across the floor of street trolleys made for particularly good data. In 1928, he wrote a thesis proposing a new scientific method for measuring audiences. Don’t stalk your readers, he said, and don't snoop through their train trash, either. Meet your readers.
Shared exclusively with The Atlantic, Gallup's 1928 thesis, "An Objective Method for Determining Reader Interest in the Content of a Newspaper," is an eerily prescient work, which reflects on today's discussions about viral media, news analytics, and even native advertising, all while showing that we've been having the same debates in this business for the last 80 years....
Fascinating story, well told by Derek Thompson. Highly recommended reading. 10/10