American Press Institute: Read This Before Your Secret 'Crisis' Meeting

The American Press Institute is huddled behind closed doors this week in crisis mode discussing how to save the deadwood editions that still turn a profit.
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The following post excerpt is from my weekly column on millennial journalists in Editor & Publisher:

Few would disagree that the impending Obama administration marks the arrival of World 2.0, nor that social media will be a dominant force in the way our nation leads and solves problems across industries, including (and especially!) media coverage.

Fortuitously, I spent the latter part of post-election week with some of the country's leading thinkers and entrepreneurs discussing what role the Internet will play in the future of our society at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Issues ranged from climate change and energy independence to food manufacturing and consumption, online dictatorships, the future of health, political accountability online, and the future of the media business.

Spearheaded by Federated Media chairman John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, the lineup included Al Gore, political strategist Joe Trippi, my old boss Arianna Huffington, Google.org's Larry Brilliant, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, Digg's Kevin Rose, Twitter's Evan Williams, Current TV's Joel Hyatt, Tesla Motor's Elon Musk, Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg, and many other innovators.

As I sat in the various sessions contemplating the extensive possibilities at our feet when bold leaders push existing boundaries, my Twitter feed continued to ding on my Blackberry with updates from Romenesko and Jay Rosen: reports of more of the same old MSM coverage of layoffs and predictable navel-gazing about election bias born of the hierarchical point-counterpoint inverted pyramid storytelling model. The irony was biting. What is a journalist if not someone who hopes to enable others with the information they need to solve the problems of our time? To connect individual citizens with their communities? Shouldn't newspapers be the ones championing this enterprise?

The American Press Institute is huddled behind closed doors this week in crisis mode discussing how to save the deadwood editions that still turn a profit. You have to wonder if it's just like watching the unplugged McCain campaign be pummeled by underestimating Web 2.0 technology. Since we won't know until they publish a report what exactly they're talking about, I am hoping the API conversation focuses less on redesigns and marketing gimmicks, and primarily on giving advertisers incentives to pay higher CPMs and invest in the redevelopment of dynamic, 21st century newsrooms that connect the distinct expertise of reporters with the emerging wisdom of the crowd.

This doesn't have to be a crisis: In fact, it is a time of great opportunity for those who are willing to make big bets -- and implement them.

Read full post here.

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