The business of media: The newsosaur speaketh

What do you get when Harvard's Shorenstein Center holds a seminar entitled "How to Make Money in News: New Business Models for the 21st Century" for journalists, and the audience is (mostly) composed of people from the journalism establishment?

Depends who you talk with. The Wiki notes from the gathering touched on nonprofit models and Twitter and blogs, but the Newsosaur opined that it was pretty much the same old people talking about the same old things, and little in the way of new solutions were brought to the table. He said:

With all due respect to my dedicated and talented colleagues, we need to try something different. Next time, we need to hear from people we don’t know, exploring things we don’t know about and examining potentially useful solutions we have yet to consider.

I believe the newsosaur is right. Many media experts naturally turn to the old models and assumptions that they're most familiar with. They generally talk with each other, as opposed to developers, entrepreneurs, and business development people. It's hard for them to think outside the box unless they are actively looking, listening and experimenting on their own.

And when it comes to business models, they're usually not. Most journalists (and many publishers) refuse to stray too far from their comfort zones (see Boston Globe advertising: What's wrong with this picture?). They may try out new content-related tools (such as blogs and Twitter) but don't consider the revenue impact. In certain cases, they feel the new information order is a threat that must be litigated in order to protect their businesses (see An open letter to Gatehouse Media, editor Greg Reibman, and other Newton Tab staff). If they neglect to open up to new ways of thinking on the business side, they will almost certainly fail, no matter how dedicated they are to democracy, truth, and the standards of the print age.