One of the sessions that I felt would be interesting was this one. I sorely missed the fact that there was no blogger on the panel - surely bloggers are the Media too .. and one of the concerns mainstream media has around blogging is around veracity and trust! Would have loved to see someone like Rebecca McKinnon (an ex-CNN bureau chief and founder of the citizen journalism platform Global Voices Online) on this panel.
Speakers:
Rena Golden, Senior Vice President of CNN.com, USA; Christine Ockrent, Journalist and Author, France Television, France; John Thornhill, Editor, European Edition, Financial Times, UK; Moderator: Liz Padmore, International Advisor and Consultant; Associate Fellow, Said Business School, Oxford, UK
Liz Padmore started the session by saying that in the UK, you get the impression that the Media really sucks. But remember there is something good in the pursuit of truth … and more than 1100 journalists killed in the last 10-11 yrs. Whats driving changes – increased competition/tech/us – are we demanding too much too often too quickly?
Christine – Forces at play in Media — for Europeans on the continent, the UK media and the BBC always looked upon with envy! The good news is worldwide there is more media than ever before, thanks to organizations like CNN and thanks to technology, which makes access to news free. The sad result, in the west, is we have lost control of the narrative. There is CNN and also Al-Jazeera. Until 9/11 Western media told the world what they ‘needed’ to know. It changed with 9/11. China is launching a channel in French. The BAD news is the complexity of the world and therefore the over-simplification that the media provide. We the media simplify more and more because we need to sell. This is the paradox. And bad news. We need the complexities. Second worrying trend – the extreme personalization of news — trivialization eg. politicians sell themselves rather than their policies. Trivia is simple and attractive and sells. Trivia also has proximity. Another worrying thing is the speeding up of news. Today, the picture comes before the wire unlike earlier where journalists had some time to absorb the wire before the pictures came in. Today, the wire is very simple, because it must be sent really quickly, and journalists must rely on wire agencies. This speed has become the biggest enemy of media today. The blogosphere too is is blurring the space even more, with its ‘reportage’ in real time. Good journalism will survive if we adapt!
Liz Padmore asks the audience - who trusts the media and who doesn’t – majority hands up saying they don’t.
Freedom of press – is editorial now driven by business or political interests? Christine – we have to remember there was never a golden age about anything – and certainly not the press. The problem is with competition and scarcity of advertising revenue — print in particular in France is in bad shape because they are financially weak.
John – (FT Europe). Is it driven by competitive pressures of business? Quotes Balzac from his book Les Journalistes – Balzac condemns the power of the journalists in late 1800’s. Some axioms … “if the press did not exist, it would not have to be invented”. “For the journalist, whatever is probable is true”. BTW - the book in full (French) is available here. So some issues the press is judged on – that it is sensationalist, it hypes. What’s good is that it holds power under question. The positive fallouts of competition — given voice to the voiceless, lots more choices, no more monopolies that are fat, happy and smug. New media is here to stay – 40000 blogs created everyday and 70 mn in total. Media is learning to adapt, they are now evolving their web strategies through websites, podcasts etc. Also, competition holds media to much higher standards, people are demanding much more. Negative effect of competition, is that media is putting more emphasis on entertainment rather than info. Which in turn is eroding the businessmodels on which good journalism was based. Comment is free but facts are on expenses. Is there a demand for free media? Is there money in it for us? Yes we better believe that. But we have to reinvent it.
Moderator – asking John – is the FT able to maintain its ability to have complex arguments and discussions in this new age of media? Velocity of news — FT gives soundbytes too now, because FT is acknowledging the fact that people have lots of pressures on time, and is responding to the market.
Liz to Rena — 21 yrs experience in TV journalism .. what’s happening with the news on TV? How is it competing with all that’s happening? CNN recently interrupted a programme to say Paris Hilton is released …. do we really care?
Rena (CNN) — I wish they didn’t care – but now you can measure just how much they care. I think I am optimistic – today people are getting news and information in different ways. Many news organizations will interrupt with news of Paris Hilton – it’s the need for information as it happens. What’s incredibly liberating on the dotcom side, is we can offer up both the interesting and the informative. Unlike on TV where it’s now more often what’s happening moment by moment. Technology has made a huge difference in our business – for eg. you can broadcast live via a cell phone - and can gather news in a cheaper and more efficient way. It’s also upto the consumer, we are forgetting that. They will come to us because we have live experts on the ground. Yahoos of the world aggregate the news. And many may want that too. Technology has made it just as easy to make consumers publishers of news — CNN has a UGC space where they get stories from Myanmar for eg – 100’s of citizen journalists sending pictures from the streets. CNN then is the gatekeepers, we are vetting the material ourselves carefully.
Speed vs Veracity – moderator: is there a problem? Rena: But the train has left the station – I am a realist. We can’t really slow things down – incremental news reporting is what the customer has come to expect. There are ways to vett and to make sure you have accuracy above all. But speed alone is not the reason to mistrust the news.
Christine: I agree speed is there and we have to live with it but why is media looked upon with less trust? The problem with the mass market is, is the consumer right in wanting to consume so much so fast so much trivia. Question of accountability has to do with consumer choice. Am a strong believer in high quality niche products. Brand for media is as important as for any other industry and technology allows us to have high quality niche products., high standards. It’s upto the consumer to decide – read us or not.
Rena – I feel the consumer makes the media more accountable now than ever before. We have to go out of our tent to listen to what people are saying. There are lots adding value through content they are generating.
Moderator – aren’t they just adding opinion … (I almost stood up at this point and wanted to say … are you folks living in a different world than I? Have you seen good citizen journalism like Global Voices Online? Or the first-hand reports from people affected by the Tsunamis when mainstream media wasn’t able to reach some of the zones affected?)
There were many question from the audience - Jobeda Ali (who I met later and really enjoyed chatting to - she seems to love creative chaos!) talked about how small producers can break into big media and educate big media. “I want to inject reality – I want it not to remain on the blog — but I want BBC to pick me up” . Unfortunately she used the term objectivity to make her point - to which Christine said: “objectivity is a terrible word – I never use. You want a balanced view and rely on good reporting, expertise, and POVs that you try and balance. The same way that you have citizen journalists – you now have people who can provide their productions on loads of people. The manipulation is even greater on the internet … because anything goes”.
A gentleman from HP asked, what’s the future of Media? This wasn’t really answered except with a we don’t know yet. Some questions around the ownership of media making it less trustworthy, and the economic imperative that had to be taken into account when you talk journalism. More news is biased because of the owners, some felt. John quoted a Russian newspaper editor who said, “we will never be able to have an effective independent media – until we have a profitable media.” This is the reality. However, media must always challenge governments, he felt.
My take - there are some terrific bloggers with solid journalist backgrounds who have opted out of mainstream media and are preferring to blog and work as freelance journos. And then there are those millions on-the-street ‘reporters’ bringing news and opinions to the world in real time and real voices (without those biases that come from business and ownership issues raised in the panel). One of the things I am learning thru blogging is the whole definition of ‘Who is the Media’, especially for the younger generation growing up with the internet, is undergoing transformation. With repercussions on both traditional journalists and new media users. Interesting times ahead am sure!!
