Recently, I read a post on Recode that defined the work of publishers in a way I simply cannot believe: “Publishers create and aggregate information and present it to users in return for their attention, which they sell to advertisers.”

I mean, sure, that’s what publishers spend a lot of time doing right now. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Competing in the attention game is a race to the bottom, so we as news producers should step out of that game entirely by focusing on something else: the purpose we accomplish and values we convey. …

I don’t trust anyone.

When it comes to news, at least.

When I decided to pursue a journalism career a few years ago, I knew I wanted to “fix” the industry. But I don’t think I realized at the time how broken it is. And I’m not even talking about “fake news” or media companies struggling to stay profitable, though these issues are connected. What I mean when I talk about trust is: There is no news organization out there today that I believe is fully doing what’s best for me, its audience, or itself. …

When Mark Zuckerberg announced on Jan. 11 that Facebook’s goal would shift to fostering “meaningful social interactions,” he explained the rationale as being rooted in research. The company has found that while connecting with others online is good for users, “passive” consumption of content is “not as good.”

So when I recorded my news consumption habits for an entire day last week, I was a little dismayed to realize how passive those habits are. I suppose that means my news routine is “not as good” — but does that matter?

Out of the hundreds (if not thousands) of tweets, headlines…

On the day I began writing this, I woke up to find a new survey from the American Press Institute that identified one key reason young people pay for news:

“For younger audiences to be willing to pay, they must bond with your mission and purpose.”

What this means is that news organizations have to do their work with the public in mind. Reporting that is irrelevant, stiff and haughty, self-serving or elitist is not going to strike a chord with an audience looking to subscribe to journalists whom they believe in.

Fighting the journalistic ego that leads to these…

Hey, news industry, you’re doing it wrong.

As part of a USC Annenberg class looking at how to create new journalism products, I asked some of my fellow USC students what got in the way of their news consumption today. It was a pretty open question, but they had some common answers. Here’s a selection of some themes:

News sites aren’t clearly laid out, making it hard to find relevant articles. Advertising and non-important links are too prevalent:

“Whenever I try to search for anything that’s not immediately breaking, like if I wanted to learn more about Betsy DeVos, it’s hard to find backlog articles or archived pieces.”

Story length and format:

“I don’t find it super appealing all the time to sit down…

When Josh Javaheri entered college in 2013, he knew he wanted to start a business. As a freshman at Boston University, he said, he was surrounded by entrepreneurs, and the environment for technology startups was picking up steam. After one unsuccessful venture, Javaheri came up with his crowning idea in the spring of 2014: a mobile game called Lucky Day.

“It came from my enjoyment of arcades,” Javaheri said. “What I loved so much about these places wasn’t necessarily the games, it was winning the prize, the money. …

When HackSC began on the night of November 13, the rooms of USC’s Annenberg building were abuzz with chatter. About 700 college students from various schools were brainstorming and embarking on a journey to create something new at the hackathon.

One group — who called themselves the “Soylent homies,” after the nutritional beverage — thought to build “machine learning for restaurants.” Then they realized that such a service already exists. They changed their idea to an app to scan a user’s photos and then recommend what activities to do next. But that wasn’t feasible, so they finally settled on an…

When T-Mobile announced Music Freedom — unlimited music streaming not subject to data caps — customers rejoiced. As the company puts it, T-Mobile is “setting music free.” The company was at it again on Tuesday when it announced Binge On, which extends free streaming to a variety of video services.

But while these offers may appear highly enticing and consumer-friendly, they have a darker side — and it has to do with something called net neutrality. Let’s dive in.

What is net neutrality?

In a neutral Internet, all service providers treat all Internet traffic equally. No special treatment, no paid “fast lanes,” no discrimination…