SESSION: How to turn around current journalism/newsrooms and save what is good?

CONVENER: Mike Skoler, Minnesota Public Radio

ATTENDING: Mike Van Buren, Rich Anderson, Staci Kramer, Peggy Holman, Chris Peck, Jim Shaffer, Stephen Silha, Janet Wu, Dave Johnson, Scott Hall and Matlho Kjosi, Linda Ju.

Assumptions: Main stream media is worth saving, it can change and it must change.

Goals: What is being done? How do we evaluate it? How do we drive/support change?

Chris Peck: Right now the MSM has the resources to counterbalance powerful newsmakers and sources. You don’t want to lose that. MSM knows it must change, but

Chris Peck: Chris Peck: Right now the MSM has the resources to counterbalance powerful newsmakers and sources. You don’t want to lose that. MSM knows it must change. But for all of its weaknesses, the MSM is still gigantically hugely profitable. And there are all kinds of careers and structures that are built to replicate that again and again. So if you go into that machinery and stick a wrench in it, you just can’t really very well overcome the fear.

Peggy Holman: What about doing this within a newsroom?

Staci Kramer: Because if you don’t do it right, you’re screwed.

Mike Skoler: New Tyco CEO has replaced most of the senior executives.

Staci Kramer: One way not to introduce change is not trying to undermine everything that is being done. When Cole Campbell was here, he introduced many ideas which would have been good if they succeeded, but they were dragged down by other things.

Chris Peck: You need to be up front about the fact that some people are not going to be able to go over the waterfall. “If you just can’t do that, you have to acknowledge that and say you are going to go do something else with your life.” There is a core in a lot of news organizations that are hardwired to something in the past.

Mike Skoler: Are there any examples where change has been able to take hold.

Staci Kramer: Where people are told to do it instead of being asked to be part of the process from the start, that creates a problem.

Jim Shaffer: There is a terrific book out: “Leadership on the Line,” by Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky, which deals with principals of adaptive change.

Scott Hall: There is good main stream journalism being done. “I am a big fan of powerful journalistic organizations holding powerful people accountable. If we go to this model of community journalism, we are steping out of the way of powerful people. There is a real serious issue to me of mainstream journalism being powerful enough to hold powerful people accountable . . . They are big enough to hold our entire state government accountable. I can’t do that.”

Jim Shafer: “One of my concerns is that big powerful media is becoming less powerful.”

Chris Peck: “Or co-opted.”

Chris Peck: How can we change and preserve what’s best. We have to be careful to say we are not throwing everything out here. It is the old model of preserve the core. I think what you need are projects, examples that are spanning that. So the traditionalists can say that is preserving the core, and the people who want change can see that something is changing.

Jim Shafer: Have a robust discussion about it among the stakeholders about what the core is that needs to be preserved. … many of us are of the opinion that mainstream journalism will fail and that unless we create models that have to grown from community models, there may be nothing that inspires them to change. I am personally hoping that a few organizations will make the transition and inspire others.”

Are there any organization you look at as making it?

Jim Shafer: He thinks the NYTimes will survive. They have taken a huge hit to earnings, they are under a lot of pressure. They have done a lot to the organization of their newsroom. One day they will print their last print edition and nobody will notice because they are everywhere else. He thinks the WSJ is missing opportunities, but they are making change.

Staci Kramer: Go back and look at WSJ’s re-organized structure. Now the Electronic and WSJ are a brand, economically connected and no longer separate. They have 761,000 pay subscribers and Barons has more. They made sure they have a free new site by acquiring MarketWatch. They wanted to tap into inventory of consumer advertising that MarketWatch has and tap into audience of people who won’t pay for information.

Chris Peck: There are some similarities between the social-economic profiles of the WSJ and NYT readership. Probably the high-end niche markets at the high-end of the social scale may make the transition. But that is NOT the mainstream media as most people think of it. Is their path a lot different? Is there are learnings you could take from either of those models?

Peggy Holman: Yes. Understanding your audience.

Staci Kramer: She personally likes the newspaper model which requires people to subcribe and pay for certain resources. She like that. You have to have a really passionate following to get away with it. It worked in Green Bay but not in Atlanta.

Mike Skoler: More than half of MPR’s audience is from outside the five-state region. Why? The simple reason is that people are finding it through search engines and are coming because they have good stories about subjects that warrant national attention. Dan Zwerdling’s piece at American Radio Works about what would happen if a major hurricane hit New Orleans.

Chris Peck: The question you keep hearing from the MSM is: “Are you monetizing the Internet.” But focusing on monetizing it, it may you take you a place which may be beyond your core mission.