Media Events

After wrapping up two days of the Personal Democracy Forum yesterday, we ran over to a panel hosted by Reuters and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers discussing the future of journalism in a multimedia world.

Moderated by Reuters' global managing editor Betty Wong, the panel included New York Times business and financial editor Lawrence Ingrassia, a very pregnant Financial Times U.S. managing editor Chrystia Freeland, Columbia Journalism School dean Sree Sreenivasan and mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby.

Wong opened up the conversation by asking the panelists how media companies can make the best of all their resources, in order to take advantage of the many different platforms available.

"We all have to ask ourselves, 'What do our readers really want?'" Freeland said. She added that journalists are entrepreneurial at heart and want to create a brand and a Web presence for themselves, but it's up to the editors and management to decide what's best for the news organization. "The turning point came when journalists realized that it is in their personal interest to have a Web presence," she said. "Journalists became journalists to become famous and make a name for themselves."

Photo: Thomson Reuters Markets CEO Devin Wenig (right) introduces the panel featuring (from left) Touby, Sreenivasan, Freeland and Ingrassia

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The past couple days have been filled with a flurry of panels and presentations about technology, politics and new media. There's been so much information flying around, its hard to sort through all the noise. That's why we were so pleasantly surprised by Kansas State University professor Michael Wesch's presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum this morning about YouTube and the new media generation.

As a cultural anthropologist, Wesch examines how YouTube -- and social media Web sites like Twitter and Facebook -- have made people voyeurs and over-sharers. His entrancing presentation, which included some popular YouTube videos and their tributes, remixes and satires, drew the only standing ovation we saw at PDF.

This afternoon, we sat in on a panel about how the "Internet Ecosystem" can improve journalism -- a topic we have ruminated upon ourselves. Moderated by PDF founder Andrew Rasiej, the panel included Frank Rich of The New York Times, Time magazine's Karen Tumulty, Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media and NPR's Scott Simon.

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During the afternoon session at the Personal Democracy Forum today, we sat in on one panel about citizen journalism and another focused on organizing and fundraising using Twitter.

The first panel of the afternoon was moderated by The Nation's Ari Melber and featured social media experts Amanda Michel of ProPublica.org, NPR's Andy Carvin, Twittervision's Dave Troy and Andrew Turner of GeoCommons.

The panel discussed using crowd sourcing and citizen journalists to report and develop stories. These tools were the key to covering stories like the 2008 election cycle and the inauguration festivities. The group talked about why citizens want to get involved, deciding that involvement can be attributed to many different factors, from political motivation, curiosity or just to check where tax dollars are being spent.

"Sometimes imminent danger motivates people," Carvin said, adding that more than 500 people volunteered to report news and information for NPR in the days leading up to Hurrican Gustav's landing last year."But I can't get people on board a hurricane project for this year until there is a storm about to hit."

Michel, who worked for the Huffington Post's Off the Bus project during the election last year, said that although she needs to check information from politically motivated sources carefully, sometimes they make the best sources.

"It needs to be an issue they care about -- either they or their friends or family is involved -- something there to pull them in," agreed Turner. "They are not going to get involved just because it's in front of them."

(Photo: Melber, Turner, Michel, Troy and Carvin talk citizen journalism)

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Today and tomorrow, FishbowlNY will be reporting from the Personal Democracy Forum, a conference that focuses on the intersection of politics and technology.

This morning, after a keynote from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (in which he revealed that his home phone number was listed in the phone book for many years until a reporter discovered it and published it) we sat through presentations by Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com, Ning.com founder Gina Bianchini, Harvard researchers Danah Boyd and David Weinberger and media critic Jeff Jarvis.

(Photo: Jeff Jarvis presents at the Personal Democracy Forum on Monday morning)

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Last night's panel (from left to right) Kevin McKean, Craig Newmark, Rachel Sklar, Ben Popken and Bob Sullivan

Last night, we hit a panel at 92Y Tribeca hosted by the Consumerist and Consumer Reports that focused on online media's contribution to consumer protection.

The panel, moderated by Consumer Reports' editorial director Kevin McKean, featured Consumerist co-executive editor Ben Popken, Craigslist.org founder Craig Newmark, former Huffington Post contributor Rachel Sklar (who is currently working for Abrams Research) and consumer reporter Bob Sullivan, who writes MSNBC's the Red Tape Chronicles column.

Throughout the discussion, Sullivan represented a traditional media point of view while Popken commented on the differences a Web site like Consumerist can make in getting companies to recognize and react to consumer complaints. Newmark advocated social media and consumers' individual responsibilities to speak up, while Sklar, quoting Ronald Reagan, warned consumers to "Trust, but verify," their sources of information.

"Anybody who wants to can be an authority, can be a blog publisher, can make their opinion known, can make their experiences known, can join in a movement if they wish," Sklar said.

More after the jump

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If there's one thing we like to do here at mediabistro.com, it's party. Tonight, we're offering you the opportunity to meet and network with the people who teach mediabistro.com courses at our Meet The Teachers Party.

Instructors like Alexis DiResta, Alison Pace, Beverly Goodman, Cara Birnbaum, Brett Leveridge, Cheryl Della Pietra, Christa Bourg, Christine Egan, Darragh Worland and David Tristman will all be there, and you'll have a chance to score discounts on seminars, workshops and classes.

Interested? More details after the jump or click here to RSVP.

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Thursday evening, we stopped by B. Smith's in Midtown for the party celebrating the Spring 2009 issue of the New York Review of Magazines, which is produced by students at the Columbia School of Journalism.

In his speech during the festivities, NYRM's advisor Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation and director of Columbia J-School's Center for Magazine Journalism, joked about how this was the rare magazine event where no one was worried about losing their job. After he gave his toast, Navasky spoke with us about why he doesn't think print magazines will disappear and why he didn't agree with New York magazine's take on the purported "existential crisis" at the Columbia School of Journalism.

(photo by Mirjam Donath)

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Traditionally, media types like to party amongst themselves, dress up in tuxedos and eat chocolate fondue and call it an industry confab. But times are tough. As the print media shrinks, so too do the glitzy, pricey conferences.

Both the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Magazine Publishers of America have canceled their annual meetings this year due to high price tags and low expected attendance.

However, sometimes the show must go on. Last week, the American Society of Magazine Editors held their 44th Annual National Magazine awards dinner, albeit with some modifications -- they dumped the popular chocolate fondue, scaled back the cheese bar and decided not to ask attendees to don black tie attire, Forbes reported.

Meanwhile, here at Mediabistro we're gearing up for a conference of our own, Mediabistro Circus, which is going on as planned on June 2-3. We'll be there, will you?

What do you think about industry groups canceling conferences and awards banquets? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Tomorrow they will be appearing on a panel for The Wall Street Journal. The NHL's Gary B. Bettman, the NFL's Roger Goodell, MLB's Bud Selig and David Stern from the NBA will discuss The Future of Sports (it's capitalized because it's Important). WSJ sports editor Sam Walker will moderate and Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of
Dow Jones & Company and managing editor of the WSJ, will host the event.

According to a release, "the event will address the business of sports, including the challenges and opportunities the leagues face in the current economic climate, as well as issues of competition and matters that are important to fans."

There will be a live Webcast of the panel on WSJ.com and FoxSports.com starting at 9 a.m.

"Maybe the newspaper will live and maybe it won't, but the question is where is the journalism going to go?"

That was one of the questions raised by TheDailyBeast.com founder Tina Brown today during the IFC Media Project panel at the Paley Center of Media. Also featured, Peggy Noonan, who appreciates the new media landscape. "There is a broad wasteland of banality out there, but there is more variety than there was when I was a kid and I love it," she said.

And bridging new and old school, Brown thinks "Ben Franklin would have been a passionate blogger."

Below, Noonan describes why reporting for "PeggyNoonan.com" may not get desired results, and after the jump, former Bush administration press secretary Ari Fleischer on why the Web is beginning to compete with the "front page":



Click continued to see Fleischer's "front page" vs. Web theory (and the rest of the panel's response)...

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