Monday Wrap Up

Great panel tonite on social media with Neil Budde, editor in chief, Yahoo! News, Michael Davidson, CEO of Newsvine, Amy Gahran, editor of Poynter Institute's group weblog, E-Media Tidbits, Mitch Gelman, executive producer, CNN.com, and Kinsey Wilson, Executive Editor of USA TODAY and USATODAY.com.

I thought so, anyway. I didn't know any of these guys besides Mike before tonite, and for some reason, I was expecting a few old school attitudes towards using content by readers. Looking back now, I'm not sure how I could ever expect that of Mitch, who oversees i-report, CNN's awesome citj upload site. The others also all seemed very sold on the idea that incorporating more reader content is absolutely in MSM's future.

Not that this was a highlight or anything, but this is the only part I have actual notes on since I was participating, not typing. Anyways, here's some of what I said:

"I think the question facing our industry now is not whether we use contributed content, but HOW we use it. I don’t think we really have a choice. Today’s readers expect us to give them a voice. And I think we should. We’ll all be richer for it. We should let them write stories, submit reviews, post photos, review businesses, blog and personalize the stories that we are telling.

I am not saying that because I’m backed into a corner for some business reason. I say that because I believe you don’t have to have a journalism degree to make great photos and tell great stories."

Mitch gave a really great speech at one point, and I am actually looking forward to watching the whole thing when Knight gets the webcast posted (here), since I was a bit zoned out and concentrating on who to call on next, and what to ask next, and etc.

Interesting thing is, user generated content, contributed content -- whatever you want to call it -- seems to be the big topic of the week. A lot of the conversations since Sunday, no matter where they start, seem to wind their way over to content contributed by readers, what we should do with it, how we should use it, and etc.

Opinions are pretty divided. Though people seem more on board with using UGC at this conference than they did at a similar conference I helped put together in Seattle in May. Check out this informal I gave to both groups. These are the responses for this group. Feel free to take the survey yourself, also.

See other reports from Journalism in a 24/7 world: Decision-Making for the Online Editor A Knight Digital Media Center presentation:

Report for Day 1
Report for Day 2
Monday (Day 2) Wrap Up
Report for Day 3
Go to the Knight Center site here for more info