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Looks like a PBS set, flower arrangement, water, big easy chairs.
Moderator: Bruce Koon, ONA president and Executive News Editor, Knight Ridder Digital
Panelists include:
Leonard Apcar, Editor in Chief, The New York Times on the Web
Richard Deverell, Head of News Interactive, BBC News
Esther Dyson, Chairman, Edventure Holdings Inc.
Mitch Gelman, Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of CNN.com
Ruth Gersh, Editorial Director, AP Digital
Retha Hill, Vice President for Content, BET.com
Dean Wright, Vice President and Editor in Chief, MSNBC.com
See more below.
Also noted: Joke from Ruth: AP going through "regime change": she's says it's like going through the 3yr dotcom thing all over again. She's very snappy, btw.
Questions were asked by pulling a name out of a hat:
What keeps you up at night?
Ruth: Wondering whether the technologies that we tout are really revolutionary, through online news, tribe/friendster etc, or blogs, are we isolating ourselves, and losing the shared news experience. What are the social implications?
Hill: What keeps her up? How do we reach young people? How do we demand a two way conversation, how do we interact? Will we lose them if we get into smaller and smaller communities? How do we get them to participate?
Len: I'm a print guy, and got the job a year ago. A lot keeps me up at night. One thing: we've spent time in excellent discussions, but step back to think about a couple issues for news sites: came from web to paper, video's time has not come to the web, high speed connections, increasingly into the home, significant moment. What others have done with video delivery, and with ads and profitability, there is a moment in front of us where news websites can capture things and make a significant stride. Video, as a story telling device, can no longer be ignored. 2004 campaign, for telling stories and gaining readers, is a new thing.
Esther: isolation and fragmentation? Are we going to take our own social networks and in defending ourselves from spam, will we wall off? How do you fund news? Adwords and adsense? Delighted to see that google is here. And with targeted ads, bloggers can do this. But with P2P info will bloggers change ads, politics, technorati, (she's an investor), but do people actually get more involved,
Richard/BBC: internet is becoming liberated from PC. Not just wireless, but also shortform text on TV, 7/24, so the only way you can do this is to have journalism text that can be granularized, all content that can be used and reused in multiple ways, and BBC is trying to do this, sea of opportunities, and whenever there is a new device, we can serve it.
Dean: sleeping well, but that's because he's decided he's in the mainstream. Ask that people join him in banning the phrase, "new media." So many tipping points, it's a wonder we aren't falling off the stage. Employers have outfitted offices with high speed, and that makes for media on web. People can get whatever they want, whenever.
Can we understand what has become mainstream, and how do you reach that audience?
Dean: Finding a new prime time. TV has it: 8 to 11pm. But news online, it's late in the day at work. Advertisers, in TV world, are moving to video in the webworld. At MSNBC, see video storytelling model. Key new thing they see in the next year.
Hill: Audiences want to see questions for newsmakers. Have DIY, where users can pose questions. Young people want to have a say, as opposed to passively sitting by.
BBC: From Britain, online news is fast, people dip in and out, have to make it work for people who are in a hurry, and there are people with stories to tell, so mine that.
Len: if you don't have what they expect, you may lose them forever, so you have to meet expectations, and be superb, but once you have that, then, okay. They expect news, but want to know what it means. Op Ed is most popular, because people want to know what it means. If you can tag those bases, then you are credible. If not, then you have to ask how to do that.
Mitch/CNN: people want to receive info in a certain way, so we will let them determine, it's up to the consumer
Ruth: sounds so easy but it's hard. People don't want to sift, they want to find out stuff "right now," so there is still a call for editorial judgment.
Esther: Who is your audience, it's the same people who are becoming your competition.
Is there an unanswered question for the audience?
Dean: sometimes AP is the only source covering: being enlarged by the audience.
Len: say one thing about users as competition? They've been competition since the beginning. Zealots, organ grinders, sometimes they break things first. But journalists, and know everyone's talking blogs, and at the NYTimes, they have a starter blog, you can find it, but there is something to the journalist sensibility, but there is more to a million users becoming journalists, but there is something a big news organization brings to the table, with a $250m budget, MSNBC brings things to the table. It's just not going to happen in our lifetimes,
Esther: will make things lively by attacking back: know about sanctity of journalism, didn't mean competition for creating news, but the competition for eyeballs, time
Len: 30 sec rebuttal: some big bad news orgs will kill themselves, there will be others who will die, but your space is to provide something people keep coming back for, that's your
Vin: Richard, describe ICan.
BBC: new, two weeks, it's a community based site aims to encourage users to engage in grass roots politics, came from last election complaints, so people wanted to make a difference in local political issues. Site provides info about what's happening, puts users in contact with people in power, info on how to make a difference, and then if you wish to start a campaign, with others who are interested in the same things. It's in trial, but hope it will help with local grass roots political activism.
Esther: reference another site: publicmind.com -- post issues and collect others around that issue
Rock the vote: CNN: was an attempt to involve people in campaign.
Len: asked other papers around the world to send them editorials from around the world, in English, so that US users could see other views of us, and other issues.
Michelle Solomon, MSNBC: feel like sometimes online web components are the afterthought of newsrooms, and will there be a time when we become the forethought?
Ruth: Yes! We will, we are. AP undergoing big change, with new CEO. If there is a hidebound org, it's AP. AP has served all existing media as it's come along, but finally, a public acknowledgement that print is driving the whole organization. So boy, maybe that's not the way to do it. Public acknowledgement that maybe that's not the way to do it.
Esther: If you want to be innovative, maybe you shouldn't work for TV.
BBC: Reached 3 million people a day. Within 3 years, if rate of online growth continues, online is growing fast and will surpass in 3 years, though management lags 2 years, so maybe in 5, online will be thought of as most important.
Dean: Number will change things.
Mike Anderson, Street: Web is superficial, shallow. But when I find a story that's interesting, I read 4 or 5 pages of stuff. Am I weird, or is there hard data that there is a physical aversion to reading on the web?
BBC: meant that most people dip in and out, and is superficial. But if interested, they will stay. But often short.
Len: have high usage, from research. But still just a matter of a few minutes a day. But you are breaking the linear story telling mode with the web, but the web gets you to interesting stuff.
Esther: not sure breaking the linear storytelling thing is good, there is value in following a line of logic, attention that is a jumble of impressions doesn't necessarily get you to deep thinking
Ruth: don't have to expect that online will provide everything you need, same as print doesn't give you everything you need.
Len: Sunday mag pieces are some of longest, and quite well read on the web. Also most emailed story on NYTimes is 14,000 word story.
Ruth: was it printed, or read online.
Len: we know, because we can follow what people do printing verses reading.
Jean, Virgin Island Source: Freedom of press really belongs to those who own one. So now, online is a step forward. But as journalist, we have responsibility to make a step forward. Ex: Ken Starr, press conf on Monica/Bill but a couple of hours before, posted report on the web, so now that government can circumvent the media, what does that say about what we are doing?
BBC: Yes and no. Is fantastic, that source is published. And news orgs should link to them. But can a government be an alternative source of news? Users don't trust government and so will look to editors.
Len: people need a trained eye.
Dorian /ABC news: ask this not on behalf of company but as interested individual. Challenge to appeal to people from such diverse communities that you may not have an implicit understanding of, so how do you attract an audience, from US and world?
Dean: actively seeking ways to
Ruth: at least there are women in this room. Different than a lot of rooms Esther and I sit in.
Len: Blair issues, and Siegel report are online (some laughter and note from me: the Siegel report disappeared for a while, until Jay Rosen bugged them about getting it back up on their site, and that report is about what the NYTimes was doing re: Blair) but ...
Q- what does diversity mean?
Len: married or single, M/F, gay or straight, children or no, race, religion, but have to be conscious of the fact that news rooms have gotten away from what America looks like.
Esther: other kinds of diversity, people who don't use the internet. I find it hard
BBC: agree with Len, define diversity broadly. One of our most important and central challenges in next few years.
Retha Hill: Prism we often tell stories through is often a white one, but also gen x, gen y, comes back to a need to make sure staff is diverse. New and old media are similar in who's telling the story. In fact, we are losing people by not getting them involved in journalism.
Q – where do you see your businesses in five years? Okay three years.
Dean: Far more visual, with much more video.
Hill: People will interact with TV in a way they can't now.
Esther: expect my newsletter will be a blog.
Ruth: maybe will have finished our reorg by then, not sure. Continuation of where print and text won't be the driver. Created things in the order they need to be filed.
Len: very different. We will be, if successful, journalistically: we will be NYTimes at core but different than today, not aesthetically, but NYTimes voice online. We cannot be wedded to the newspaper as the central core. All content there, but what we do will be very different, and a voice beyond the paper. Don't mean the words will be different, but the voice will be very different than today, and part of mission to break out of grouping of newspaper sites. Biz: money talks. Even in 3b company, and they will blow past 10% of op rev of co, and blow past $300m/yr, but within the corporate agenda will get much more interesting. 20% profits, and they pay a licensing fee to NYTimes. We don't get a free ride.
CNN: Tivo, more choice, more on demand access, more compelling content.
BBC: big numbers, diversity of devices, really intelligent engagement with audiences, with constant feedback, and what matters to people.
Travis Smith, Variety: worry that keeps me up at night: Google is single largest referral for them. Great, but trend with Google is email alerts, so people register with Google instead of us, and ads placement is out of our control on email alerts. So is Google friend or foe?
Esther: they are grease, they remove friction.
Len: we work with Google, but we watched them. Guys in their news room wanted to catch them with coffin ads on the obituaries. But there is a bunch of garbage on the Google alerts. Have issues with google ads.
Ruth: we work with them, but also watch it. Ads are an issue.
(had to change batteries, but Esther was answering a question from Shelia Lennon, and so it's quoted here from her blog post on this: I just asked Esther Dyson publicly, as an unaffiliated futurist, how she thinks news and information will enter our lives after the quantum leap, the watershed. She said she thinks Wall Street is poisonous, and that (wealthy) citizens will have to step up to insure news can still be gathered.
"News philanthropy?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, "if necessary."
You could feel the ripple go through the room.)
Esther: journalists have courage, but wall street doesn't; need journalism that is making good information, not just entertainment to get eyeballs
Q - how will news change?
Len: content, the news reporting will change,
BBC: people look granularly, so give bits that are reconfigurable.
Ruth: we will have to give them both,
One liners?
BBC: 2004 will be the year video takes off
CNN: look to the audience for direction
Len: Mitch?
CNN: and of course to the NYT
Len: the homepage will become less important than it is today
Ruth: the Nigerian email is true
Esther: down with news nuggets
Hill: down with blogs
MSNBC: an online journalist will win a Pulitzer.
End
Posted by Mary Hodder at November 15, 2003 02:36 PM