Finally, some answers. Jason Pontin, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of
Technology Review, at last addressed the elephant in the room during the plenary session. In a speech and panel discussion titled "Where is the Money?", Pontin made the following points:
- Print is not dead, but it is dying. Journalism will survive, but there will be many few journalists in the field. The next few years will be "terribly unpleasant" as huge numbers of journalists and publications disappear. Print publications that do survive must drastically decrease their frequency
- Editors are no longer the gatekeepers of information, because there has been an enormous proliferation of sources and citizen journalists. Instead, editors are the leaders of a "collaboration of professionals," charged with delivering a certain quality of content. Editors must also give readers what they say they want. At the Technology Review, the content is about 80% of what the readers say they want and 20% what the editors say they want
- Consumers must buy more of what they read, and advertisers must be given the tools to understand their audience and measure the success of their advertisements. In some ways, advertisers are now making up for years of being "ripped off" by print publications. There should be clear guidelines as to what separates an online advertisement from an advertorial from regular content as has been the case in print journalism for decades
- Readers must be able to subscribe to an online publication for whatever length of time they desire. They should be able to see a single story, or a whole issue, or several years worth of issues
- Journalists must discuss how they will open up the newsroom to citizen journalists, i.e., how they will treat information from the armies of self-appointed primary and secondary sources
Pontin is not a prophet, but he has made the most sense of anyone I've hear here so far.
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