If you read one speech from the President of a major newswire today..make it this one
Friday, November 2, 2007
Tom Curley of the AP speaking at the Knight Bagehot Dinner yesterday. Some choice bits.
We — the news industry — have come to that fork in the road. We must take bold, decisive steps to secure the audiences and funding to support journalism’s essential role in both our economy and democracy, or find ourselves on an ugly path to obscurity.
The portals are running off with our best stuff, and we’re afraid or unable to make or enforce deals that drive fair value. Revenue lines in a good month are flat. In other months, they inspire the merchants of debt to imagine how they might take us over and show us how much smarter they are.
And…
We who rule content must start making decisions, the ones that deliver journalism for another generation of readers and viewers.
I’ve been inside many major news organizations the last couple years, and, invariably, I hear the same refrain. We know what to do, but we can’t get it done. Or, sadly, we’re in worse shape than we were two years ago because we’re spending even more proportionately trying to keep the old model functioning. More than a few persist in trying to make their online sites life rafts for newspapers or newscasts.
So, a few more things might have to change. The pressures on the bosses will have to build. Many more of us in leadership positions must step up and say, now.
Connoiseurs of Curley’s ouevre might want to see how he’s moved on from this 2004 speech to the ONA.