By Alex P. Vidal/ PNS
NEW YORK — The 2009 Media Summit has officially started at The McGraw-Hill Building on the 49th Street and 6th Avenue 1221 Avenue of the Americas, here, and will conclude on March 21..
I would like to acknowledge Linden Alschuler & Kaplan, Inc. public relations Jeff Kings who arranged our participation in the briefing and attendance in the panel discussions in two industry events featuring The Associated Press.
King provided us the heads up and put us in touch with AP senior managing editor Michael Oreskes, who discussed “the changing face of media and news, the challenge of the economy and social change.” Oreskes oversees domestic news for AP, from state bureaus to national coverage, for both U.S. and world audiences.
King also arranged a conversation with AP mobile and emergency products general manager Jeffrey Litvack, who talked about “how mobile has affected headline news” and the “re-imagining of news media” through emergency technology.
EDITORIAL VOICES
Speakers that included YouTube Strategic Partnerships director Kevin Yen Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff, emphasized that “every morning, the national conversation is started and disseminated by the editorial voices at the major news organizations across the globe.”
The tradition of great print and broadcast journalism reportedly remains at the core of our democracy, in fact, it could be argued that with the rise of “new media” distribution, more individuals have access to news than ever before.
With the growing power of broadband, mobile, IPTV, social networks, blogs and other non-traditional news sourcing, the role, the path of the future and the general understanding of how to structure a national news gathering and distribution organization is reportedly the ongoing question for the industry.
It was learned that “the power and voice of news continues, but the role of our great institutions is in flux.”
INFORMATION PORTALS
Meanwhile, Litvack stressed that from blogging and citizen reporting to established editorial, media is now mashed up to form new information portals via RSS, content personalization, and intelligence feed readers.
The glue between all of these segments is reportedly the new monetization models that enable them. He discussed how are established media companies and news organizations responding and how can marketers leverage this channel in a new unique way for mobile. Shocking events such as Hurricane Katrina, Oklahoma, and Mumbai were covered and viewed first via mobile. This new, unique time-based, perishable medium has reportedly affected other areas of content publishing.
This year, online news reportedly surpassed the traditional newspaper industry in reader volume. He elaborated that mobile has impacted this market. The panel featured various news industry experts providing perspective on how to best leverage this as part of content strategy.
Litvack and fellow speakers Caroline Marks, The Daily Beast general manager; Jonathan Shar, CNNMoney.com SVP and general manager; Brett Wilson, USA Today SVP of advertising; John Soppe, King Digital managing director; Smokey Fontaine, Interactive One chief content officer; and Steve Zales, Time Inc. Lifestyle Group president, that the news media, newspaper and magazine industries can no longer be thought of as print media.
The web and mobile and soon to be IPTV and interactive TV strategies from the newspaper and magazine industries are reportedly among the most interesting and innovative approaches to new media.
Leaders in the Publishing 2.0 discussed first-hand the transformation and how these publishing brands have become media brands, how their content and business models have changed, and how they’ve capitalized on their recognition of the tremendous upside for revenue and multi-platform efficiencies.