Your Audience Awaits (Yes, You There, You Personally, the Person Reading This)

I joined the NewsWrights United team because I believed that a play about new media should use it. Way back in May of 2010 we envisioned a creative process that the audience could actually be a part of, combining the oldest art form (using humans to tell stories in person) with the newest (the series of tubes). It would be a seamless merger of content and form.

So we set up a Facebook page. Arts journalist Jeremy M. Barker used that page to give us a lead on an interview -- and that interview made it into the show.

We unearthed a collection of tweets about #WAShooting -- the Maurice Clemmons murder and manhunt. Then we started contacting everyone who made those tweets in the first place. KUOW thought that was interesting and did a segment about it.

And now our show opens on Friday -- The New New News. The audience awaits.

But here's the hook -- the audience isn't you. It's us.

Our hashtag is #NNNews. You know how to find us. So start talking. We're listening. Were we completely off base? Did we do wrong by some local notable? Was it the smartest thing you ever saw?

And what about the future of the media? Are we doomed? Is this a brave new world of hyperlocal content and niche opinion-making?

There are countless "social media engagement strategies" that are transparent advertising campaigns. That's not us. We're hosting a post-show discussion after almost every performance so you can tell us where you think journalism is going. We might just have a smart little phone in our hot little hands, too, which means that if you ask a question via #NNNews on Twitter, we can answer it live. Plus, we actually give a crap what you think! (Fair warning: anything you say may become a line in our next play)

I'm truly excited to watch our Facebook and Twitter light up with your thoughts. We've done some talking. Now we're listening.