The journalism industry might soon see ideas from two conferences — one at MU and one in Washington, D.C. — to help it survive the transition to digital media.
Last month, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission hosted a series of workshops to see how the Internet has affected journalism and if there is anything the government can do to help the industry. At the same time, the Reynolds Journalism Institute hosted a three-day “action congress” to discuss issues of trust, identity and Internet information commerce in journalism.
After three workshops regarding the future of the journalism industry in Washington, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz dismissed any possibility of his agency recommending a tax to revive the journalism industry June 15, deeming it a “non-starter.”
“We’re looking at the future of news, a topic that is vital to the future of our democracy,” Leibowitz said at the event. “Without the kind of journalism that holds government, business and others accountable, through fact-checked reporting, we can’t be the well-informed citizens necessary to a well-functioning democracy.”
In December, the FTC held the first of its three workshops, entitled “From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?” in Washington, D.C. Members of the public involved in the journalism industry were invited to a series of forums to aggregate a list of suggestions to rejuvenate the suffering journalism industry.
The submitted ideas ranged from giving grants to universities, which conduct investigative journalism, to imposing a tax on iPads and other devices to fund the industry. Although he was not present at the latest workshop, RJI consultant Bill Densmore shared one of the included ideas at the first workshop.
“Information commerce has moved very slowly because the only way you can pay for anything on the web is through having an account with each individual website that you deal with,” Densmore said. “As a result, we all have sort of the functional equivalent of a little black book of user names and passwords that you need to keep track of.”
Densmore said it’s a major problem from a convenience standpoint.
“What doesn’t exist on the web is what has existed for twenty or thirty years in the physical world, and that is the notion of a credit card where you can have one card that works at lots and lots of merchants,” he said.
He doesn’t think the public is unwilling to pay for news, but rather that the public is unwilling to pay in inconvenient or too expensive ways.
Densmore hosted the RJI conference titled “From Blueprint to Building: Making the Market for Digital Information” from June 23 to June 25. The conference focused on establishing a non-profit collaborative that would specify standards for the digital information marketplace and raising money for an association that attends to the needs of all American newspapers.
Also representing Missouri in FTC conferences was Sen. Claire McCaskill. New America Foundation President Steve Coll said McCaskill spoke about her time as public prosecutor when she had to make several difficult judgments daily, with the press playing an important role as a watchdog.
Though many ideas were discussed, the FTC did not decide to send any suggestions to Congress, Susan DeSanti, the commission’s Director of Policy Planning, said. Instead, she said the commission decided to produce an analysis of its findings.
“We’ve learned a great deal from all of the participants in our workshop,” DeSanti said. “Now the commission will determine what are next steps.”
DeSanti expects to release the final study in the fall.