By Jonathan Arkin
Jonathan is a graduate student majoring in Specialized Journalism
School of Journalism director Geneva Overholser welcomed Bill Gannon, director of online operations for Lucasfilm, Ltd. at the Sept. 16 Journalism Director’s Forum for a discussion titled Best online practice: Product development for new media.
The two were joined by a group of faculty and students who discussed the changing face of journalism and how content is presented online and ingested by readers.
Gannon, who has worked for Yahoo News as its editorial director and served as national correspondent for the Newark Star-Ledger, lectures in new media at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. In his capacity at Yahoo, which is primarily concerned with news aggregation rather than creating new news content, Gannon was responsible for product development and content programming – areas that he said prepared him to recognize how some forms of online content are extremely successful depending on its connection to the reader.
“Students love online newspapers because of their relevance,” Gannon said, illustrating how one online newspaper geared toward students in Kansas is finding innovative ways to reach out to its readership. “It has meaning to their lives.”
Gannon also said that when looking for young journalists to hire, he looks at more than “perfect print clips massaged through copy editors.” Instead, he told the gathering, he looks for bloggers and other self-driven journalists with a working knowledge of business models who can operate independently when required.
“I need to know you write well,” Gannon said. “That you can edit yourself. What I would love to see if for 'SC to consider maybe a business course for second-year students so when I interview them I can ask them ‘Have you ever done an MRP or DRP?’ and they’ll say ‘Yes.’”
Gannon said he was pleased to see that USC Annenberg continued to be at the forefront of academic training for online journalists, but he suggested that the curriculum might benefit from a cross-disciplinary approach including economics in addition to communication.
“I really believe in you and your students,” Gannon said to Overholser. “It would be great to partner up with your graduate school of business. I think there’s a great opportunity to explore and dare and risk failure...to create new models and to be experimental...We journalists can change the lives of others. It is very profound...they are now going out into the world. The public’s need and the raw power of the news...we are in great shape for the future.”
With the excitement technological developments of the Information Age increasing content as well as the ways by which it is presented, several students at the forum questioned the future of “generationally dead” medium of print. But Gannon disagreed.
“I’m not sure it’s wise to make deep predictions,” Gannon said. “Print is not dead – it’s changing. It’s becoming something else. As long as there’s a demand for the product, it will exist. I’ve heard people predict the death of magazines, the death of broadcast television too many times. I wouldn’t bet on print being ‘out’ any time soon.”
Gannon gave the Gannett Company, responsible for print, broadcast and online newspapers, much credit for re-inventing itself as a multimedia publisher – even as shifts from advertising-based models into subscription based ones threaten to radically change the landscape of publishing. He also credited bloggers with providing much of the interesting content currently available online and pointed to their importance in the future.
Overholser agreed, but she added that old-fashioned reportage is in danger of being supplanted by much of the citizen journalism currently fed by the tremendous amount of information available to the layperson.
“There is this increased amount of engagement between information and journalists and the public,” said Overholser, referring to the staggering amount of content available online. “What is happening with journalism is that the public does not know that thing that is being threatened is the original, expensive reporting – the investigative and enterprising reporting. I think there is fruit for that discussion...to take it to the public. Because of the collapse of the business model – who’s going to pay for it? It’s the end of the economic model that is the real problem. It’s expensive to pay for journalism.”
In closing, Gannon offered some hope. In his final slide, he reminded his audiences that journalists have a tremendous responsibility to society.
“Serious challenges to journalism in this age of disruptive change remain,” he said. “But I believe our opportunities and abilities are greater than our challenges. That’s because I believe in each one of you, in the commitment of your faculty here at Annenberg, and in the remarkable role that news plays in our lives.”
