Implications for journalism

It surprises me every time I read a journalism article how little attention has been paid to the audience. Anderson (2011) writes that this is primarily because of a disconnect from the audiences, the "inability to intellectually imagine an audience of millions of people." However, that's what advertisers do all the time. No one can simply imagine what audiences may be like but advertisers have always sought audience response to reflect opinions and improve campaigns. I do not understand how news had evolved around superiors writing for themselves assuming "that what interested them would interest the audience" for so many years before finally coming to the realization that the the millions of audiences out there may have different thoughts and opinions. Despite the importance of audiences, I think they serve a different purpose for an industry like advertising that is a commercial business versus a news organization that needs to serve the public's best interest without monetary incentives. I feel that citizens have the right to be informed of public national matters regardless of what kind of articles other audiences want to read about. To me, public journalism movement seems like the best option. Indymedia's push where audiences are encouraged to be citizen journalists does not seem newsworthy to me and people can write their opinions on their private blogs. Demand media has an algorithm set up to pump out new articles and videos based on popular searches and online trends. This simply adds to what is already known and popular out there and does not contribute to actual news or new information.