Last session of the ONA which aims to highlight what’s coming up on the horizon for journalism.

Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine His big thoughts are that journalism is becoming more collaborative and participatory.

His new project, Daylife, aims to create a distributed platform for the world’s news, which analyses what is being covered, how and by whom.

It will be based on an open API to let people take content from Daylife and put it on other sites. The initiative goes live later this month as a soft launch.

Goodbye editors

Next up is Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. He talks about the power of Digg, run by nine people and it is profitable. Arrington says people like it because it is driven by readers.

“People are realising that editors are not a good way of chosing what is news,” he argues. Ironically, Digg does not produce its own content but relies on content produced by media organisations.

He is pessimistic about traditional newspapers, saying they have no reason to survive – a controversial statement that has left people chomping at the bit to respond.

Next he moves onto the idea of predictive markets and the wisdom of the crowd. As an example, he cites Pickspal, a fantasy sports site. They make money be selling you the ‘genius’ picks, distilled from the wisdom of the crowd.

Arrington argues this works as the people making the picks are not traditonal experts but sports fans, who are passionate about the game.

Who do you trust?

Picking up on the idea of who is an editor, Mike Davidson, founder of Newsvine offers an insight into how this site works.

He says he has become very interested in the issue of trust, as stories are voted on by users. And users are judged by six measures, such as how long you have been a member, contributions, reputation etc.

He highlights a project called OpenID, so that you can log on whatever site, but your reputation stays with you. The idea is that the good contributors rise to the top, regardless of which site they are commenting on.

Raw TV

Adam Yamaguchi comes in with the multimedia perpective, talking about Current.TV.

The first issue is categoring the network, which he jokes people call the Al Gore network. But among the early nuggets is that 30% of the content is produced by users.

He says they have also found that audiences are forgiving about the quality of video and audio – no matter how raw it is, viewers just want the story, he says.

Takeaways

In conclusion, the panel is asked what should big media do to survive and flourish. Their advice:

• Davidson: Hire the best people, try different things and it doesn’t have to work to be successful.

• Arrington: I’m disdainful of newsrooms [said in a room full of journalists]. If you are a journalist in your mid-thirties, stuck in a job, strike out on your own and do your own blog.
• Jarvis: We need radicalism. Go to newsrooms, scare them and then be positive. Work out where you are going to be next year. Baby steps are not sufficient.
• Yamaguchi: Embrace the OhMyNews model [a mix of professional and citizen journalists].