Conferences without tables. Pah.
Reuters CEO Tom Glocer opened the second day of WeMedia explaining why Reuters is “constitutionally made up to live in an online world” because of its wire service heritage. Reuters hasn’t had to “spend a wink” on newspaper publishers’ issues like whether to hold the presses for a major breaking story or to scoop themselves online, and how to use a web team to provide rolling news.
Glocer thinks ‘the debate’ is moving on very quickly (the changes are, but the debate?) and cites the “explosive growth” of blogs in particular: “What other business is growing at that rate? A new blog created every second of every day?”
He said the flip side of the growth of online debate and opinion is that people are participating less in the formal political process. “People seem to feel they are getting more value for their investment in time and efforts in blogging and content mash ups than in going to the pollling station and participating in the political process. That has some pretty scary implications for the future of democracy.” I don’t agree, because those bloggers and that discussion are part of the process. It’s silo thinking again. Describing and naming something is part of the process of understanding it, but that categorisation is divisive because there are many shades of grey between bloggers and journalists, for example.
On user content, he said: “It’s up to all of us to create an environment where we get the balance right between incorporating content that comes from outside, and creating enough content inside to get our own message across. People want to blog around or contribute to a community that they see value playing in.”
Inside/outside? The walls haven’t quite come down yet then.
Our We Media coverage is sponsored by Congoo
This article originally appeared in MediaGuardian.
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