Web 2.0 Summit 09: "Discussion: Whither Journalism?"

Robert Thompson of the Wall Street Journal (the guy on the far right, pun intended) is SUCH a tool, such a puppet, such a blind, greedy buffoon it's pathetic, but not surprising.

His distinction at the beginning between originators and aggregators, and later on between creators and reverberators, is so out of touch with what has been happening for the past 10+ years on the Web, in that the line between the two has been totally blurred.

And even with mainstream news, what reader gets their news by having a private personal wire directly from the Associated Press? WSJ gets readers to pay because most of the readers are workers within the financial industry who NEED to know what's going on within their sector--and they can easily and willingly afford to pay. Readers of entertainment news or political news would not pay and will NEVER pay.

The answer given by the Eric Hippeau of Huffington Post at 9:30 is right on the mark.

Great talk. I especially like how Martin Nisenholtz and Robert Thomson chop the jungle of opinions down to relevant basics.

"Readers are not foreclosing on the ivory towers of institutional journalism" - advertisers are.

Awesome. Best discussion on this topic for months...