As he introduced Washington Post Editor Len Downie, ONA president Michael Silberman tossed out a couple of figures worth noting. This ONA conference has more than 500 registrants while ONA — founded in 1999 — has surpassed 1,000 members. Then Downie stepped up and pointed out something most non-Washington attendees wouldn’t know: the ballroom needed to accommodate this crowd is the annual home of the famed (or infamous) Gridiron. No light opera from Downie, who got right down to business at a pace that made it nearly impossible for me to keep up in real time and saying more in a few minutes of opening remarks than some keynoters fit into an hour. Think compressed data file. I’ll pull some more direct quotes as soon as I get a chance and will post the audio if I get the ok from ONA. The gist: the assumptions and worries he and other print types had about the advent of online journalism “have turned out to be ill-founded.” Those worries included:
— Competition
— Distraction: “Did it degrade our journalism? Absolutely not.” Of course we have unlimited newshole; I was known for writing long as a reporter and editing long as an editor. Now (there’s a) a place to put it all.”
— Errors: “We edit to the same standards. Jim Brady has exactly the same standards I do.” As for standards, Downie told attendees not to let veterans talk about the journalism good old days — there was cheating and plagiarism but they didn’t get caught. “Now you get caught every time” because of online scrutiny.
— Citizen journalists: “We were all afraid of citizen journalists. Citizens have joined us but they have not displaced us.”
— Bloggers: Instead of competing, they’re driving traffic; Matt Drudge is the largest driver of traffic to washingtonpost.com. If they break stories first, “Fine, that’s great … You get the benefit of their reporting then you get to have the depth” of a mainstream newsroom. “Blogs are keeping us honest .. after our tails all the time. Of course, we’re blogging. Take that.”
Downie also raised challenges that need to be faced:
— What do shrinking attention spans mean for contemplative journalism?
— Will it make up for the revenues of the mother ship? “Our combined revenues are going to have to be enough to pay for that kind of journalism.”
— Will branded content still have value? “The fears I used to have about online competitors are those the fears you have now [about aggregators]?”
— “Will content sharing between old media and new media become more of a two-way street?” He says old media has been too stodgy about getting ideas from new media.
— How much will the lines really blur? “What would be the best way to merge what we do with you do?” He said some complete mergers haven’t worked but didn’t name names. Will the Washington Post/washingtonpost.com newsrooms merge eventually? “We don’t know. It’s not something that’s an easy question to answer.”
Update: ONA is letting me post our audio for a few days until the professional version is posted for ONA members to access.
You can download the audio here (6.7 MB, 16:37 mins). Or you can stream it here … click on the arrow:
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