Congratulations! You have been named Time Magazine's "Person of the Year."
Of course, it's a shared honor. You won. But that guy over there, in the corner – he won, too. And the Fed Ex driver who cut you off on the commute this morning? Yep. Another winner.
What the editors of Time meant, of course, was that 2006 marked the eruption of what the buzzmakers have hailed as Web 2.0, social knowledge-making and the democratization of the media. They toast the popularity of YouTube, social networking Web sites like FaceBook and MySpace and a variety of "New Media" initiatives designed to liberate "millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity."
In other words, Time's editors have discovered that their readers aren't just "consumers" of news, but producers as well.
This recognition isn't new to us in the world of industry publishing. Newspapers like Healthcare Finance News only succeed when their editorial teams – the writers and editors whose names appear on the masthead – understand that their readers are the experts, the knowledge-makers, the institutional memories.
In every issue of our newspaper, you will find a "Quoted" box on the DataPoints page (see page 22). This is where our reporters create an index of everyone they've cited, quoted or paraphrased in the current issue. We create this index to acknowledge the source of our newspaper's credibility.
Our editorial philosophy is one of transparency. We believe you shouldn't take our word about what counts as news to financial decision-makers in healthcare. But you might want to trust the wisdom of your colleagues, the people you rub elbows with at professional conferences, regional meetings, or the nearest cafeteria. These are our sources.
If you have news or an opinion about the world of healthcare finance, we'd love to hear from you. Contact any of our editors by phone, mail or email. Write a letter to the editor or pen a guest column. We really believe that Healthcare Finance News is your newspaper, and we invite you to join us in the effort to report on how the industry is changing.
Visit our Web site in the coming months and you'll see some neat Web 2.0 technologies. Social bookmarking. Social editing. Reader commenting. But even before that rolls out, we've been proud to have "You" on our editorial team so far, and look forward to even greater collaboration in the days ahead.