1 1 I N D E X 2 3 AGENDA ITEM: PAGE: 4 Welcome, Honorable Henry Waxman 23 5 Presentation by Tom Rosenstiel 6 6 Presentation by James Hamilton 14 7 Presentation by Matthew Gentzkow 34 8 Presentation by Karen Dunlap 46 9 Panel: Public- and Foundation-Funded 10 Journalism 56 11 Panel: Reducing the Costs of Journalism 126 12 Presentation from Reed Hundt on the Knight 13 Foundation Commission 187 14 Panel: Engaging and Informing Consumers 15 in the Internet Age 202 16 Presentation by Lisa George 252 17 Panel: The New News 264 18 Conclusion 313 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 7 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 8 9 10 11 12 FROM TOWN CRIERS TO BLOGGERS: 13 HOW WILL JOURNALISM SURVIVE THE INTERNET AGE? 14 15 16 17 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2009 18 19 20 FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 21 601 NEW JERSEY AVENUE, N.W. 22 WASHINGTON, D.C. 23 24 25 For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 - - - - - 3 MS. DeSANTI: Good morning. Could you please 4 take your seats now, we're about to start. 5 We have a terrific morning coming up for you, 6 but I need to quickly annoy you with a very few 7 housekeeping items. For those of you who were here 8 yesterday, you can sleep through this part. First the 9 security announcement we are required to read: Anyone 10 who goes outside the building without an FTC badge will 11 be required to go through the magnetometer and x-ray 12 machine prior to re-entry into the conference center. 13 In the event of a fire or evacuation of the 14 building, please leave the building in an ordinary 15 fashion. Once outside of the building, you need to 16 orient yourself to New Jersey Avenue. Across from the 17 FTC is the Georgetown Law Center, look to the right 18 front sidewalk, that is our rallying point. Everyone 19 will rally by floors. You need to check in with the 20 person accounting for everyone in the conference center. 21 In the event it is safer to remain inside, you will be 22 told where to go inside the building, and if you spot 23 suspicious activity, please alert security. 24 Second, here are the technology announcements: 25 As you might have seen, the FTC's home page has a link For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 4 1 to the News Media Workshop webpage, where you can find a 2 link to our Twitter page, located at 3 twitter.com/ftcnews. People who are following the 4 webcast can send questions for panelists using Twitter 5 via the @ftcnews. We will try to pass some of these 6 questions to the moderators. You should be aware, as 7 the general counsel's office requires me to alert you, 8 that your messages may be subject to disclosure under 9 FOIA or other applicable laws. Also, there is Wi-Fi 10 access available for those who want to write about the 11 workshop in realtime. You will need to get an 12 instructional pamphlet with the log-in code and those 13 are out on the table just outside these doors. 14 Finally, I'm going to describe how today's 15 presentations and panels will work. As you can see, we 16 have a crowded agenda, so we're going to keep the 17 introductions short, but I do encourage you to read the 18 bios that you have in your folders, because every one of 19 our speakers has outstanding accomplishments. We have 20 only a few breaks, and a limited time for lunch. If you 21 need to exit the room for any reason, please go ahead 22 and do so, you don't need to wait for a break. 23 For the panels, each speaker will have three 24 minutes to give an opening presentation that highlights 25 the main points that he or she would like to make. For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 5 1 Unfortunately, we need to be strict on the time limits, 2 given all that we have to cover. 3 After the presentations, then we'll have a 4 moderated discussion, and if a panelist wishes to speak, 5 please turn your table tent up on end. If you have 6 questions for the panel, use the question card that is 7 in your folder and look for Suzanne Drennon and Suzanne 8 Michel, one of those two people over there, and they 9 will take your question up to the co-moderator, and we 10 will try to make time for audience and Twittered 11 questions to the extent possible. 12 We are now ready to begin. The order of our 13 first three speakers has changed, due to Representative 14 Waxman's schedule, but not too much. First we're going 15 to hear from Tom Rosenstiel, then Jay Hamilton, and then 16 Chairman Henry Waxman will speak at 9:30. He needs to 17 be back at The Capitol at 10:00 am for a vote, so we are 18 really going to keep to that time table. 19 First, let me introduce Tom Rosenstiel. He 20 designed the Pew Research Center's project for 21 excellence in journalism and directs its activities. 22 The project studies the revolution going on in the world 23 of news and information, and has produced scores of 24 reports since its inception. Basically, the Pew State 25 of the media study is essential reading for anyone who For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 6 1 is interested in these issues. 2 Tom? 3 MR. ROSENSTIEL: Thank you. I see I'm not quite 4 the draw that Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington were 5 yesterday. 6 (Laughter.) 7 MR. ROSENSTIEL: Well, I will make it less 8 personal, and hopefully that will make up for the lack 9 of people who came to see me. 10 What I want to talk about in the ten minutes 11 that I've got here is a definition of what are the 12 essential problems facing what we think of as the news 13 media, because I believe that they are not necessarily 14 the problems that everyone thinks they are, or the 15 problems that we expected. 16 First of all, it's not really correct to say 17 that the media are shrinking. A component of our media 18 is more robust, richer, deeper and is growing, and that 19 is the discussion element of our media, the commentary 20 component of media that happens after the initial 21 reporting, which is an essential, vital part of what the 22 press is all about. The goal of journalism is to 23 inspire public debate. 24 What's shrinking, what we're worried about, is 25 what you might call the reportorial media, the component For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 7 1 of the press that goes out and finds things out, the 2 search light, the bearing witness, a variety of 3 functions, which I'm not going to talk about today, but 4 I do talk about a lot. 5 That's important because that expands the 6 agenda. That tells the public what's going on. That 7 grounds the public discussion that's becoming more 8 robust in fact, and accuracy, and verification. 9 So, what's going on? What is causing this 10 reportorial media to shrink? The first problem, and why 11 should we care about this shrinkage. The first cause 12 here is that the Internet has decoupled advertising from 13 news. Many advertisers no longer need the news to reach 14 their audiences. Whether it's Craig's List or Best Buy 15 in their website, you don't need to wait for the Sunday 16 insert to find out what's on sale, how much that iPod is 17 now, you can find out when you're so eager to buy it 18 that you wake up at 3:00 in the morning to find out how 19 much it costs, or what is that flat screen now, you can 20 go on their website and buy it, right then and there, in 21 your pajamas. 22 So, the media as an intermediary for advertising 23 is disappearing, particularly in larger markets, where 24 the retailers and the consumers are online in large 25 numbers. For The Record, Inc. (301) 870-8025 - www.ftrinc.net - (800) 921-5555 8 1 The other problem with this is that from a civic 2 standpoint, the way that media worked when advertising 3 was the primary subsidy, was that the media bundled its 4 information. We used classified advertising to 5 subsidize coverage of the zoning commission, and the 6 media in a sense could force feed delivery in mass 7 information to the public. So, if you were interested 8 in the bridge column, you might actually glance across 9 the front page on your way to it. We had the creation 10 of incidental news acquisition, a social science term 11 that I sometimes use.