Where Are The Editors?
The panel was titled "Where are the Editors?" and on stage were Tariq Krim, Craig Newmark, Jim Spanfeller, Dave Sifry and moderator Jochen Wegner, editor of Focus Online. Oh, and Arianna Huffington. And she stole the show. Not that the competition was fierce or anything. Wegner is sober, Spanfeller is serious, Sifry is geeky and Newmark is goofy. The handsome, gifted and dynamic Krim was the only one who offered Arianna a run for the glamour money, but she just had more of it that all the others put together. It ain't fair, but that's the way it is.
Anyway, what promised to be something else turned into the (getting very) tired debate: old media vs. new media. Old Media descending; New Media ascending. Winners and Losers. But Arianna was having none of it. As she sees it, it's not either/or. Yes , the New York Times is Old Media, but its hugely popular website is New Media. "We don't need to choose sides," she says. "Are you into TV or YouTube? Yahoo News or the New York Times? Blogs or Newsweek? The answer doesn't matter, because the question is faulty. So give me blogs... and my hard copy of Time (especially the one with You/Us on the cover!). Let me watch stuff on TiVo, DVD, YouTube, on an iPod... and on cable TV." Perhaps because she's one of the few women at the top of the New Media tree, perhaps it's the allure, but whatever it is, Arianna Huffington's got it and she knows how to use it work a crowd.
Despite the diversions, the session theme was addressed and the conclusion was that we do need editors. We need them for the things that humans can do best: absorb, analyze and act. Two places where editors are urgently needed right now are Ireland and Germany. Richard Delevan has assessed the Irish situation in a brilliant post titled "Why Irish Politics Is Shit — Vol 1— Journalism", and Rainy Day cites the following example from the German media where the need is also great. Last weekend's Süddeutsche Zeitung had a column (€ upfront) in the business section by Andreas Oldag that rambled on about the price of oil, President Bush, the 2008 election and the Democratic Party which, according to Oldag, is "Die Partei, die voraussichtlich mit Hillary Clinton oder Barack Obama gegen Bush antreten wird..." ("The party that will probably challenge Bush with either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama..."). Hello? Rewrite Desk, can you get us someone here who has heard of the twenty-second Amendment to the US Constitution? Yes, indeed, editors are needed.
