Hey Eve!

Thanks for your note. Here’s more context in case it’s helpful:

Hearken does not mine content from an audience, it mines their questions. Journalists / newsrooms are still responsible for doing all of the work.

We see a journalist’s job as being of service to her community’s information needs (from the weather to traffic to news to context etc.). A weird corollary, but the one coming to mind is: think of a journalist like a worker at Chipotle. For journalism: since the audience is paying for the journalism (whether directly or not), we at Hearken think they get the right to weigh in on the product they’re buying. So for Chipotle, it would be odd for a customer (aka audience member for journalism) to demand to be paid for the creation they made with all the resources supplied by and expertly prepared by Chipotle (even if it is a brilliant combination of ingredients the customer puts together).

Now imagine this Chipotle took preferences from its customers earlier in their process. Imagine customers could weigh in on other, new ingredients they’d like Chipotle to buy and serve them, or other ways they could be combined to the customer’s liking? This is what Hearken wants to make possible in newsrooms: for the audience to be able to weigh in even deeper back in the process, before the comments section to help newsrooms better understand their true information needs. In our model, journalists do all the work still, providing a product or experience to you that you value enough to pay for it. Because you may not have the time in your day nor the expertise to investigate something you’re really curious about (but a journalist does), and because you may not have the time in your day to go shopping for and expertly prepare a delicious burrito for dinner (but a Chipotle worker does), you are willing to pay for it.

At Hearken, and in the 50+ newsrooms we work with across the board, the journalists do NOT think their audience is dumb. These journalists *clearly* respect their audiences, and give them the opportunity to help shape the news journalists currently prepare on their behalf.

Make sense?