Terry Heaton
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Terry Lee Heaton (born July 9, 1946) is an American writer, author of the popular Pomo Blog and widely read essay series, "TV News in a Postmodern World."
Heaton is the former news director for several local television news stations, including WAAY, WRIC, WCTI, KGMB, WDEF, and KTLA. He produced the 700 Club in the mid 1980s, pioneering its transition to a point-of-view journalism show. He left television news management in 1998 and entered the world of online commerce by taking over Ansir, an internet-based personality test.
For several years, he operated Donata Communications, a consulting company based in Nashville, Tennessee. He consulted with local TV news stations around the country, advising them to drop their pretensions and the arrogance inherent in being a TV station, owner of a big tower looking down at the city. Rather, he taught them about the reality of postmodernism and its effect on the people who (increasingly) used to be their audience. He was fond of reminding broadcasters that, with minimal cash investment, anyone can be a TV station in today's world. Their business model must change, he warned, or they will find their audience continuing to vanish.
On June 13, 2006, Donata Communications was acquired by Audience Research & Development, a Dallas, Texas-based "leader in research and consulting for the local broadcasting industry." Heaton posted on his blog that he will be "running AR&D's Digital Development Unit," bringing him the opportunity to more directly put his ideas and philosophies into practical action.
He has coined several mantras that he dubs "Heatonisms," and Heatonism number one is his most-repeated. "Revenue isn't the problem. Audience is the problem. Fix the problem!"
His continual advice to broadcasters is multi-faceted, frequently trumpeting the need to embrace blogging as a form of journalism.
He is something of a populist, rejecting Walter Lippman's belief that "the people" need an elite press to lead them. Rather, he encourages local TV news stations to view the modern era as an Age of Participation, one in which they can have a role if they learn to listen first. He is also fond of pointing out his belief that objectivity is a farce, something concocted to give a "sterile environment for advertisers." He preaches transparency, encouraging journalists to own their point of view and trust the audience to be able to deal with the truth that they have one.
Under the auspices of Donata Communications, he has been responsible for several highly successful and innovative experiments in local news, including the Nashville is Talking blog, a local aggregator run by WKRN.
He is widely sought-after as an author and speaker, having served as a panelist at the NAB, RTNDA, PBS, and Gnomedex conferences, among others. He is a masthead columnist at The Digital Journalist, a contributing writer to Lost Remote, a columnist for OhmyNews!International, and a contributor to Morph, the Media Center Blog. He has been a guest on numerous radio programs and podcasts, including NPR's On The Media.
Heaton's blog, which he will continue to write after the acquisition, focuses primarily on issues of television news, postmodernism, and how the internet is increasingly becoming part of the fabric of daily life, especially for the young. He also posts occasionally on matters related to his personal life. He posted about his wedding in October 2004 to Alicia Smith, a television news veteran with whom he had worked in the past. In April 2006, he gave his readers an "Easter gift" in the form of an essay inspired by the History Channel's series, Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. The essay, "Ten Days That Unexpectedly Changed Me," ended with a note about the day Smith came back into his life. Just nine days later, blog readers were shocked to learn that his young wife had passed away during the night. That post garnered nearly 300 comments, and he later posted that he had made their blog comments available for reading at the wake. He recently added a page, "Remembering Allie," wherein he links to his posts about her on one page.
He has also posted personal recollections in the form of an essay about his spiritual journey, "How I Know God Loves Me."
