About thirty media heavy-hitters gathered at last week's "Whose News" symposium hosted by the Neiman Foundation for Journalism and The Media Center, to discuss the future of news media, the changing relationships between media and society, and technology's effect on news and information. Here are a few of the principle ideas:
- Journalism: What we should have (create), what should last (survive), and what should die (change): lists of suggestions for these three questions are posted on the symposium's blog. They range from RSSing everything to changing the focus of news from big corporations to grassroots journalism.
- Education: When it comes to the internet, professional journalists are not sufficiently nor properly trained. Jay Rosen, journalism professor at New York University and PressThink blogger feels that there is a "huge gap between what most journalists know about the Web and what's actually happening on the Web." Furthermore, Brian Reich, Director of Mindshare Interactive Campaigns L.L.C. calls for more journalist training of younger generations.
- The future of content: Rebecca MacKinnon of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard says that in the future, "It's not the question whether mainstream journalism survives. It's whether journalism survives. The MSM (mainstream media) are doing more audience-pleasing content and are less concerned about doing the work of the public good. We need to look at the business model issues. If you're working for a corporation that is most concerned about short-term business interests, can you do good journalism? " Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin feels that the media is not delivering enough value and could be taking more advantage of the resources of the newsroom to deliver that value.
- The future of the media business: On his blog, David Weinberger, blogger and a fellow at The Berman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, posted the general consensus of the participants of the symposium who saw the future of the media dictated by citizens reporters who will "be integrated into the 'ecosystem'" while the media becomes an aggregator of information. Jeff Jarvis summed this consensus up into three words: trust, transparency, conversation. On his blog buzzmachine, Jarvis also said that, " Instead of being the gatekeepers of news (controlling it), we (the media) become the enablers of news."
The Editors Weblog may not have been kicking around the Crimson campus last week, but from reading the symposium minutes and reactions, it doesn't appear that anything significant was accomplished apart from a bunch of jumbled ideas being spewed out by the experts. Halley Suitt, writer, blogger and symposium participant complained on her blog that the overabundance of thinking and the lack of action had her "climbing the walls." She also smirked at the irony of having an "editor" (monitor) deciding who could talk and when, at a conference discussing the freedom of conversation that blogging permits.
Most blogs, even that of the symposium, simply list a quote or two from the invited "elite" without providing any substance or debate. Next time, if it is at all possible in this somewhat incipient conversation about the future of the media, we would like to see some more concrete direction added to the discussion.
