The Online Publishers Association recently had a conference called "Forum of the Future," which they discussed what the future of online publishing would be. Now they were looking at it from the traditional media way of seeing things, not the new media.
A couple of things that were said shows some of the reasons why they will continue to struggle for a long time to come.
First of all, they talked about traditional media publishers a "transforming themselves" to lead the way into the media future. Really? I can think of an awful lot of people that find that thought laughable. It seems like it makes them feel good to believe that.
Second, one of the most polarizing publications in the U.S. said concerning bloggers that they don't represent objective facts. New York Times Senior VP of Digital Operations Martin Nisenholtz cautioned publishers, "We need to recognize that blogs represent opinion, not objective facts."
I wonder if he was able to hold a straight face when he said that? Of course there are many blogs that represent what they believe, that's part of the beauty of the blogging world. On the other hand, there will always be shrills across any category or spectrum that have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Traditional Media
But for the New York Times to say that they are objective and trustworthy in contrast to bloggers is a joke to about half of America. Many of their articles through the years have been so tainted by their philosophy that they aren't even taken seriously by a growing number of the population.
But back to the original comment that bloggers need traditional media's leadership is ridiculous. Bloggers have been the leaders of the new media, that's why it's called new. They've cost devastating damage to traditional media models like the New York Times who are despartely trying to regain the illusion of leadership that they haven't held for a long time.
We're going to keep on blogging, and nothing traditional media can do will stop that. They can't put all of this back in the bottle. The days of a single or group of media outlets being the gatekeepers of content and ideas is gone forever. To have worthless meetings like this to try to bring back something that is no longer feasible is a giant wast of time, other than comforting one another over the loss; which is about all this conference seems to have been.
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