2010 Meeting Notes
The Media Consortium 2010 Annual Member Meeting
February 25 – 26, 2010
Hudson Hotel, NYC
Meeting Goals:
- Kick off a year of incubation, experimentation and collaboration by sharing concrete how-tos, best practices and skills-building.
- Support ongoing networking and deepening of working relationships among TMC members.
- Provide information and receive feedback for members TMC initiatives and future membership strategy.
Major Takeaways:
“Collaboration is Queen.” – David Cohn
From shifts in technology and platforms to the significant new role that community plays in the funding, production and dissemination of content, it’s a brave new world out there. These industry changes are creating the space for media organizations to re-imagine the roles they play. Some top line items to consider as we move into the future include:
- Implications of the Changing Landscape: The Journalism Landscape Analysis created by TMC and the resulting self-placement of TMC members (see below) in the journalism landscape demonstrates a dramatic shift in how Media Consortium member organizations view their roles in the future. This has major implications on what kinds of support media organizations will need over the next few years to reach their goals—and also has implications for the shape of Media Consortium membership.
- Editorial Collaboration: TMC members are excited and committed to identifying editorial collaboration models. This sentiment has dramatically changed from just a few years ago when the idea of collaboration was determined to be a non-starter. At the meeting, we heard about successes and lessons learned from a recent editorial collaboration among TMC members around Cop15. TMC members also convened and agreed to explore future collaboration opportunities.
- Moving into Mobile: TMC members are excited and committed to moving into mobile – the question is how to do this strategically. Content delivery and engagement opportunities through text campaigns, the mobile web, apps and more were all discussed at the meeting. Each tool (or combination thereof) has different strategies, implementations, goals and costs. TMC members agreed to work with TMC and each other to test and identify correct mobile platforms, revenue opportunities and ongoing marketing opportunities throughout the next year.
- Community-building/engagement is a necessary move for independent media outlets in the coming year. Members acknowledged the need to move in that direction when they placed themselves across different sectors of the evolving landscape. Community engagement is a new role for TMC members to play in the evolving media sector. It is also a critical value added for users and potential new community members. Community engagement can involve media outlets working with their community on content creation, production, distribution or other opportunities for self-organizing, discussion, and funding. This is a new opportunity that TMC members and TMC will be committed to exploring this year.
- Business models/revenue generation: There will be no one size fits all business model. Instead TMC members must test and explore a variety of traditional and new opportunities to bring in support. More and more of those opportunities will come from moving into mobile, community building/engagement and editorial collaboration. This is another large area for TMC members and TMC itself to explore and experiment with this year.
A Progressive Media Landscape Overview
What are the next big opportunities and changes on the horizon that media producers need to know about? What is the current and future media landscape? TMC staff laid out key areas and issues drawing on research from The Big Thaw in the below slideshow.
The presentation integrated big picture recommendations for TMC members to follow, including:
- Change internally
- Increase experimentation
- Leverage unique role of a consortium
- Build audiences as communities
Each of these areas and subsequent examples were discussed and highlighted throughout the two-day meeting in panels, small group conversations and brainstorming next steps for both TMC and its members. Members also discussed the priority game-changers and opportunities that they are moving on or grappling with over the next year.
The Future Media Landscape: An Analysis
In the past few years, there has been a dramatic shift in the journalism landscape and in the progressive media sector itself. The Media Consortium was founded by a certain set of legacy players. But the landscape is changing, and new models of media production, revenue, impact, list building, community and action are becoming players. This session and below slideshow is an attempt to define the current and emerging sectors.
See above slideshow for definitions and examples of the four sectors.
Groups placed themselves in one of the four sectors for the year 2010 and where they want to be in 2015. The change was dramatic. Many groups were in pure play journalism in 2010, none were in that sector by 2015. Organizations self-selected into focus on journalism and community, journalism and action and becoming Hybrid Media Makers. You can see the changes below.
Panels and Sessions
Click on the below session titles for additional notes, presentations, take-aways, resources and recommendations.
Journalism Models and the Future
As media makers navigate this new media environment, they are developing and implementing creative new strategies to produce high-quality and high-impact journalism. What are these cutting edge opportunities and what do TMC members need to know about them? How can these strategies be used for audience expansion and engagement? What are examples of success and lessons learned? In this session, we looked at two main models: editorial collaboration and interactive journalism production. Moderator: Ann Friedman, The American Prospect
- Monika Bauerlein, Mother Jones and Jason Barnett, The Uptake (Cop15 collaboration)
- Aron Pilhofer, Interactive Web Editor, New York Times
For more information about this session, click here.
Strategies and Tools for Community Building
Journalism and high-impact media is no longer just about the content that you deliver, it’s about how you build an engaged community. Community building impacts opportunities for creating new models of journalism, revenue generation and list building. This session built on the previous session and dive into strategies and tools around community building and what they mean for your organization. Moderator: Joe Baker, Care2
- Ben Rattray, Change.org
- Susan Mernit, Consultant & Founder, Oaklandlocal.com
- Elena Haliczer, Adaptive Semantics
For more information about this session, click here.
Moving into Mobile: Should you go there?
Should your organization be moving into mobile? This session guided members through the what-to-knows, best practices, and 101′s as they develop a strategic plan for audience expansion, content delivery, citizen engagement and revenue generation through mobile. Moderator: Noel Rabinowitz, ColorLines
- Jed Albert: Mobile Commons
- Prabhas Pokharel: Mobile Active
- Noah Kunin and Jake Brewer Sunlight Foundation
- Kate Rados, Chelsea Green Publishing
For more information about this session, click here.
The Right Recipe for Revenue Generation
Business models are the most important and complex issues that media organizations are dealing with today. But there is no one business model that fits all. Instead, media organizations will have to find the right combination of revenue generation opportunities that fits their organization, audience and goals. In this session, we dove into some of the most critical revenue generation areas that media organizations need to be aware of as they continue their quest for sustainability. Moderator: Bridget Gallagher, Center for Public Integrity/Development consultant
- David Cohn, Spot.us
- Steve Outing, founder & director, Digital Media Test Kitchen at CU-Boulder
- Susan Mernit, Consultant & Founder, Oaklandlocal.com
For more information about this session, click here.
Notes/Materials TK
We will be publishing output from the below sessions, internal notes on membership strategy and small groups work later this week.
Diversifying Your Audience
Shifting demographics are creating challenges and opportunities for content producers. Different groups use media in different ways and access different types of information and entertainment sources. So where do you start when you’re trying to increase your reach? This session worked with TMC members to lay the groundwork for moving on the best editorial and outreach strategies to diversify and expand your audiences. Special guests: Latoya Peterson, Racialicious; Kety Esquivel, National Council of La Raza; Joe Baker, Care2
New Journalism Tools: Data visualization, Transparency/Sourcing, Investigative Journalism and Action
Members heard from people working on the hottest tools and engaging in the most innovative strategies to produce and deliver high-impact journalism, and discussed how these tools and strategies could be integrated in your organization and what the potential benefits are. Special guests: the Sunlight Foundation, DocumentCloud and more.
How Do You Know that Your Media Matters?
Media makers and outlets are struggling to assess their impact as familiar print and broadcast forms fragment across screens and streams. What approaches best reveal how independent and public media producers engage the public and make change? TMC members discussed lessons learned and best practices to track and explain media impact to your funders + community. Hanaa Rifaey of the American Independent News Network discussed their model of “impact journalism.” Jessica Clark of the Center for Social Media shared the results of a series of impact summits conducted by CSM and The Media Consortium.
Creating a Volunteer Social-Networking Team
This minilab honed in on the how-to’s and benefits of organizing a social-networking volunteer team. When done right, social networking teams are a great way to help increase your audience and impact using tools like DIGG, Facebook and more. This session included case studies on how to build your social networking team, tools to use and how to measure success. Special Guests: Truthout.org, Adaptive Semantics and Deanna Zandt, author of Share This!
