Publishing CEOS lurve bloggers

Free content at the Wall Street Journal is fun! You can learn all about the edgily-named “D: All Things Digital” conference they’re hosting in California, where bloggers get to mingle with the big fishies in the fishbowl. Wonkette (aka Ana Maria Cox) was there (a surprise to see on the talking head circuit), describing herself as being the person in the center of a happy media orgy. Considering that we’ve seen a lot of you in the media, that’s not exactly a tantalizing image.

More interesting (and less ubiquitous) were the publishers on hand to chat up blogging and MSM: chairmen & CEOs Donald Graham of the Washington Post Co., Tony Ridder of Knight Ridder Inc. and the recently beleaguered Peter Kann of the recently beleaguered Dow Jones & Co. (who isn’t beleaguered these days?). All three “evinced enthusiasm” for blogs (read: faked) and pretended not to be that worried about the whole print-is-dying thing. Kann also said that there ought to be “a certain degree of trust” that hidden commercial agendas aren’t affecting reporting, or how stock is voted in a public company (okay, we added that last part). Kann also thinks publishers should raise, raise prices. Well, he would.

In other news, Wonkette’s online doppelganger Greg Beato uses our favorite joke.

D: Notebook – Bloggers Take Center Stage [WSJ Online]
Take My Wife, Please [Wonkette]

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