The New News
The other night I was working for one of my favorite clients, Smith College, videotaping a panel discussion about one of my favorite topics, digital media. Needless to say, it was a good time.
Smith brought together a group of distinguished alums--an NPR news director, the founder of Media Bistro, a former CNN executive, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor and a cable tv expert. For an hour and a half they, and the audience, discussed the changes that digital media and the web have brought to journalism and news programming.
Not surprisingly, video was a popular topic. Traditional radio or print outlets are now producing video. Users are uploading their own videos onto news sites. Viewers are going to YouTube to view source footage, bypassing the sound bites and analysis delivered by networks. What does all of this mean for journalism and "the news"?
For better or worse, the internet allows broadcasters and viewers to have a conversation. It allows audiences to fragment and niche markets to thrive. It allows individual citizens a forum to broadcast their own news. This makes a lot of big media companies nervous. But it makes smaller media companies, like mine, and independent producers very excited about the opportunities that are being created!
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