Questions for We News panelists

Question – It seems that a lot of the people we are involving are already our core audience. How are we going to include more people into the conversation?

Kramer said that the most important thing we can do is to keep explaining stories better and better by listening to the public. Getting people engaged in the news, however, is difficult. Nightly news audience is decreasing for example. Broadband is allowing the media more exposure by allowing people to spend the little amount of time they have to access news whenever they have a minute.

Sambrook thinks that blogging and social software has expanded the civic space for public discussion. There are hopeful signs. An example he used was how the BBC introduced people on small islands to blogging and now anyone in the world can learn what it’s like to live on these islands directly from those who live there.

Question – How many people are interacting through new media vs. traditional newspaper or newscast. How many are involved in the discussion.

Curley – where do old media stop and new media begin? There will be an evolution. There are places we’re going to have to go to help the conversation throughout outreach efforts for instance. The biggest change we can make is to help people who work at an organization like AP know what the public wants to hear, what stories they are interested in which is facilitated by new media.

Kramer says that most people who watch newscasts still visit websites at some point during the day. The pace at which you use one and the other vary. People will be more informed.

Rebecca McKinnon asked how they are going to include the audiences who don’t have access to the new products that media companies are rolling out. Are we in danger of creating a rich participatory environment for the ‘haves’, forgetting the ‘have-nots’? What are American media companies doing to help more people get online? Are these companies pushing for free Wi-Fi access for example?

Kramer said that they refer to themselves less and less as a distributing medium. They’re not as heavily invested in distribution as they used to be. CBS will over the next few years try to make its content more available to more people. It’s harder to fund one form of distribution over another when you’re a traditional media company. We’ll have to wait and see how it plays out.

Curley said that the US is behind. Politics have denegrated to the point where it’s a big money process. This is a great opportunity for the blogging community to become engaged and change this. Media companies are very sensitive to where the public eyes are going.

Question – Are you the wrong people to be on this panel because so many youth are getting their news from Comedy Central?

Chideya – maybe we’re the wrong people to be talking about this at all. One way to look at news media is a town hall where people meet to talk about what’s going on. The traditional media has eroded this, there is no forum. we need to have strong peer-to-peer media. Non middle upper class people need to be able to generate news.