Bruce Belsham (ABC) and David Higgins (News.com.au)

A good session from the mainstream media's p.o.v. Covering a lot of issues including the sourcing of new  content, moderation of content (Aust doesn't have robust freedom of speech protections). Bruce said a lot of people read the comments more than the original content. Accuracy: Bruce says radio does unfolding stories with lots of immediacy and people accept that its done on the fly, online is a bit like radio. Both said that their sites got huge spikes of traffic during the last election, it is clear that ordinary people want to hear the views, reactions and ideas of other ordinary people. ABC will do more stuff online targeted at regions. Their is money for commercial organistions in doing what local papers do or used to do.

The future? Higgins - 2 big challenges for online media are marketing and revenue in competitive environments where you can't just stick up ad rates each quarter. Haven't done much SEO yet. Revenue is hard will be a lot of commercial pressure down the track which will raise ethical issues etc.

Belsham -agrees, most online media sites around the world are subsidised. Not a problem for public broadcasters but for commercial media organiations does it make sense to continue with loss making operations. There are questions about sustainability. Each additional viewer on TV doesn't cost anything but not true of Internet - who pays for broadband etc. Content distribution online particularly video and audio is expensive.

Citizen journalism won't takeover. Not a lot of value in adding that too sites but it is easier for people to get their stories up, but not many stories will get broken in the blogosphere but bloggers get a lot of the traffic by adding commentary on the story and getting access to the ad revenue.

Belsham - generating news takes time and money. David's vision of journalism withering online is a frightening one.

Papworth - journalists don't actually create the news they just do what bloggers do and take what people do and say and filter it back to people. Belsham says yes but professional journalist have the analytical skills, time and experience to cross-reference check etc. Clearly, says Bruce, there is room for both professional and citizen journalists. Higgins says part of continuing role for professionals is trust, range of views in one story etc. Always going to be need for places where you can get trusted reportage.

Comments

[Anshuman Misra]

Citizen Journalism can not take its destined place in media unless and until the so called Citizen Journalist strta taking themselves seriously. If a Citizen reports on something that he/she is personally privy to and which he thinks should be known by the people at large, that is actual Citien Journalism. What we are seeing more often is recycled news labelled as citizen journalism. Way to go...