Future of Media

On Wednesday, I expect to learn the future of media. The day begins with Media Magazine‘s Future of Media Forum or “It’s Not What it Used to Be.”

At The Times Center in NYC, Wired‘s Chris Anderson will take these and other media movers and shakers through their paces: Mark Cuban, Martha Stewart, NPR’s Vivien Schiller, Ad Age, NPR’s and Chaos Scenario‘s (see above video) Bob Garfield, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and MTV’s Judy McGrath.

Later that day, yours truly will take another group of equally astute, yet non-executive media mavens through their paces. They include HuffPost’s media editor Danny Shea, Mediaite’s (and Shea’s predecessor) Rachel Sklar, The New York Times‘s prolific TV/media reporter Brian Stelter, PaidContent’s man in New York David Kaplan, and Henry Blodget’s #2 who edits the increasingly influential The Business Insider (fka Silicon Alley Insider) Nich Carlson.

So if you had your druthers and could extract anything there is to know about the future of media, and maybe by extension the future of the PR biz, where would you start? I’ve begun to formulate my questions. Please chime in with others.

  • Is charging for content the right remedy for decimated bottom lines at MSM companies?
  • Will the blogosphere eventually usurp the established news organizations in authority?
  • In the age of Twitter, will the PR professional decline in value as a trusted news source?
  • Can the long-standing PR model of “earned” media through pitching (I mean “engaging”) journalists survive in an age when consumers increasingly derive their news and info from the friends?
  • Won’t there always be a segment of the population that takes its news from TV and newspapers?
  • Was President Obama’s five-show interview-fest effective in advancing his healthcare agenda?
  • Will online ad revenue ever be able to fully cover the expense of producing a quality news product? Or does something else have to give?

Watch this space for coverage and hopefully, some audio takes, from Wednesday’s media confabs.