Reuters gets it
Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, is giving a keynote at the Online Publishers Association. It’s good enough to live-blog.
Glocer said a year ago, the focus of Reuters was on “the consumer as editor,” with tools such as RSS to allow consumers to consume differently. Now, it has gone far beyond that:
They’re consuming, they’re creating, they’re sharing, and they’re publishing themselves. So the consumer wants to not only run the printing preess, the consumer wants to set the Linotype as well….Our industry is facing a profound challenge from home-created content…. If we create the right crossroads, provide the consumers with the appropriate tools… we can harnass what otherwise from the outside would look like a punk revolution….
He says that media historians will see the acquisition of MySpace by News Corp as a “turning point…. Sites like Myspace are rebuilding our world” because they provide a means for anyone who has anything to share to do so. “What we are seeing today is an almost continuing talent show.”
“Technology is creating a kind of weird, hybrid world” of mashups, he says. He recognizes a “demand for this new kind of creativity” and there is also an advertising demand for it.
: What’s great about Glocer’s talk is not only that he gets it but he gives us respect. Standing in London, he compares bloggers to the great diarists. He says that people will turn to the Rafats of the world to interpret news. He says that bloggers were important in coverage of the last U.S. election. He says that citizen journalism has a long tradition, comparing citizens’ reports of 7/7 with a survivor’s account of the Titantic crash.
What has really changed is the nature of publishing, a “Gutenbergian transformation” that involves both tools and distribution.
“If the user wants to be both author and editor, and technology is increasingly enabling this, what will be the role of the media company…?” He has three answers: Media companies will be a “seeder of clouds.” Nice analogy. I call it a magnet and would recommend that to him for he says that just creating content is not enough; they must attract the people. The second role is to be a “provider of tools… We need to produce open standards and interoperability to allow” disparate people to create content of disparate types. “Let’s not make the same mistakes newspapers did with the protectionist online strategies that characterized Internet 1.” By that he means not recreating the old content in the new medium. The third role, he says, is that media companies will be “filter and editor.” He says that “the good stuff will rise to the top” online.
: Glocer uses the Tsunami and the Concorde crash to show how citizen journalists and professional journalists together tell the story more quickly and completely. “There’s no monopoly on being in the right place at the right time.”
“We can’t be a chokehold in a desparate effort to close the digital pipe,” Glocer says, arguing that media companies must not try to protect what they have by restricting those who come next.
: Speaking to fellow media companies, he concludes: “We are the go-between providing the structure and support… between the information provider and the consumer, even if today they are the very same person.” He tells them that trust is critical and so he argues that in a world with so much information, “the consumer gravitates to trustworthy brands.”
He asks what this means for Google and China and answers the question by not answering it: “Reputation is hard-won and easily lost.”
And he urges these media companies to understand and encourage citizen media.
: I get up to ask a question about copyright and remixing: He understands the value of being part of the converstation, part of the remix and so where does he think the line is in use of his material? He says that in the U.S. there is a fairly clear line in fair use but there is a question about objectionable use. He says content creators should have the right to set appropriate use; he’s endorsing Creative Commons (-like) licenses. He says that Reuters puts its RSS feeds out in the hope that bloggers will use them and include them in the conversation and if we quote a story they’re happy.
Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes, who’s on the stage with Glocer, says he now reads Real Clear Politics and thus reads the sources of the opinions there less and he asks, “Are these guys friends or foes?” Glocer says they could be a foe to newspapers but they are a friend to readers.
In a related question, Karlgaard — looking for the dark side of the cloud still — asks whether bloggers et al are “a threat more in the loss of readers or the loss of revenue.” Glocer answers revenue and he says that bloggers are helping media find a new and younger audience. I think that’s also the right answer to the question about aggregators.
: LATER: Karlgaard leaves a comment emphasizing that he’s not a gloomy protectionist; he was just being a moderator.
March 2nd, 2006 at 6:18 am
Wonder when they’re going to allow their employees to be citizen journalists, too; I know two prominent bloggers for high traffic blogs who are Reuters employees and have been told point-blank that they will be fired if they are discovered blogging (even outside the topics they cover for Reuters).
March 2nd, 2006 at 5:51 pm
[...] Accordign to Jarvis, Glocer said of readers: [...]
March 2nd, 2006 at 8:52 pm
if a blogger and reuters have the same video of a breaking news story .
which one is worth more ?
March 2nd, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Jeff –
I’m not a dark cloud guy, or a protectionist! I love the explosion of blogs, citizen journalism, aggragators, etc. . . . and agree with you that Tom Glocer gave an enlightened presentation. But as a moderator, my role was to provoke Tom and drill down to the questions that are on the minds of the audience.
Anyway, good to see you in London.
Rich
March 3rd, 2006 at 9:22 am
Nice post. Before reading the comment that Reuters doesn’t allow employees to blog I would have said that they do get it. It would be nice to see the major newspapers and journals jump on the bandwagon and offer more of blog oriented presentation in their online editions in which readers could voice an opinion to a published article by using comments or trackbacks.
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:05 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis live blogs what sounds like a rousing keynote by Reuters CEO Tom Glocer at the Online Publishers Association Forum for the Future: Glocer said a year ago, the focus of Reuters was on “the consumer as editor,†with tools such as RSS to allow consumers to consume differently. Now, it has gone far beyond that: [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:21 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis, in London, reports that Reuters gets it. This is why I do the stuff I do, to enable people to become media hackers (early stages), then compete with big media (now) and finally, to become the media (always was inevitable). It’s not because I love technology, even though I do, it’s because I want more competition to deliver us the truth, because that’s what we need. [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:09 am
[...] A lot of folks are running around the net giving Reuters a pat on the back. Jeff Jarvis did. Richard McManus did. Im sure there is many many more. But the most clear thought that anyone can take away from the keynote at the Online Publishers Association meeting is this : “We like to encourage bloggers to take our RSS feed content and start a conversation around it,” Kiss quoted him as saying. [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
[...] 1. Reuters Jeff Jarvis meint zum vom Reuters-CEO angekündigten Vorhaben: Reuters gets it und zitiert Grocer: Our industry is facing a profound challenge from home-created content…. If we create the right crossroads, provide the consumers with the appropriate tools… we can harnass what otherwise from the outside would look like a punk revolution…If the user wants to be both author and editor, and technology is increasingly enabling this, what will be the role of the media company…?†… Speaking to fellow media companies, he concludes: “We are the go-between providing the structure and support… between the information provider and the consumer, even if today they are the very same person.†He tells them that trust is critical and so he argues that in a world with so much information, “the consumer gravitates to trustworthy brands.  He says content creators should have the right to set appropriate use; he’s endorsing Creative Commons (-like) licenses. He says that Reuters puts its RSS feeds out in the hope that bloggers will use them and include them in the conversation and if we quote a story they’re happy. [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Gimme Some Truth
Jeff Jarvis reports some apparently hopeful news regarding an old, dead-tree media company “getting it.” Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, is recognizing consumers as producers and editors, and that Reuters’ role as a media company, a firm…
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:54 pm
[...] This is why I completely disagree with Jeff Jarvis and everyone else heaping praise on Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters, who gave a keynote at the Online Publishers Association. According to Jeff, Tom has three ideas for how media companies can create value in Media 2.0: Media companies will be a “seeder of clouds.†The second role is to be a “provider of tools… We need to produce open standards and interoperability to allow†disparate people to create content of disparate types. “Let’s not make the same mistakes newspapers did with the protectionist online strategies that characterized Internet 1.†The third role, he says, is that media companies will be “filter and editor.†He says that “the good stuff will rise to the top†online. [...]
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:59 pm
Reuters is in the process of adopting a formal policy on the right of our employees to blog. We do not have a ban in place, but we treat it similarly to other potential conflicts like writing a book on company time. Employees need to speak to their managers about their blogging activities, so for example, the auto industry correspondent should not be blogging about Ford or GM if it might be seen as influencing his or her ability to cover the industry objectively
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Not heavily advertised, but Reuters does have a set of blogs that journalists post to and allow comments to… btw, for full disclosure I work for Reuters, but not as a journalist.
March 3rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Hey Jeff,
I guess Reuters didn’t get the news from the Trib, huh?
Will
March 3rd, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Help, I’m too “newbie” to do the xhtml right but thanks, J. Jarvis, for blogging this from the event. I have photos the London Reuters building and the new digital billboards — always on, always changing — with comments from you and links back to your site:
http://motherpie.typepad.com/motherpie/2006/03/reuters_and_dig.html
Thought you might enjoy the photos. You’re right up front w/ the changes — thanks for sharing and reporting.
Cheerio — Hattie
new blog focusing on new media and motherhood
motherpie.com (its a final project for media studies grad. class)…
March 4th, 2006 at 2:28 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis live-blogged the event and gave it the title Reuters gets it. He wrote, in part: “If the user wants to be both author and editor, and technology is increasingly enabling this, what will be the role of the media company…?†He has three answers: Media companies will be a “seeder of clouds.†Nice analogy. I call it a magnet and would recommend that to him for he says that just creating content is not enough; they must attract the people. The second role is to be a “provider of tools… We need to produce open standards and interoperability to allow†disparate people to create content of disparate types. “Let’s not make the same mistakes newspapers did with the protectionist online strategies that characterized Internet 1.†By that he means not recreating the old content in the new medium. The third role, he says, is that media companies will be “filter and editor.†He says that “the good stuff will rise to the top†online. [...]
March 5th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Good post. I think you may be interested in my site, Crisscross. We are the first major news site to directly apply social networking to news. We believe that social networking plays to the major strength of the Internet: person-to-person communication. In the same way that CNN used the strengths of the cable network to grow, news companies have to play to the strengths of the new medium.
Currently we use the social network to let user’s track their goals and favorites. We can then use this information to enhance the news presentation. Readers who have a goal of “go to Japan” can be given Japan news, readers whose favorite music is pop can be dircted to news about Madonna and so on.
I am confident that old media can adapt to the strengths of new media, but in the meantime there are opportunities for smaller companies like ours to compete.
March 6th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine says Reuters gets it, and to his Jarvis’ credit, he was there. But . . . [...]
March 7th, 2006 at 8:49 pm
[...] The speech by Reuters’ Tom Glocer hailed by Jeff Jarvis has been published in the Financial Times (a couple of weeks after it published a snarky, fairly clueless piece diminishing blogs). It has been a long time since I thought of Reuters as anything other than a dozy company, but Glocer is pretty spot on: First, media companies need to be “seeders of cloudsâ€. To have access to high-value new content, we need to attract a community around us. To achieve that we have to produce high-quality content ourselves, then display it and let people interact with it. If you attract an audience to your content and build a brand, people will want to join your community. This is as true for traditional “letters to the editor†as for MySpace.com. [...]
March 8th, 2006 at 5:25 am
[...] [via Jeff] This is probably the most important speech since Rupert Murdoch’s address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April last year. [...]
March 8th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
[...] A version of the speech by Reuters head Tom Glocer that I lauded is now online at the FT. While media companies are catching up with this demand for “personalisationâ€, our audiences have moved on dramatically. Now they are consuming, creating, sharing and publishing their own content online. [...]
March 9th, 2006 at 11:01 am
If there are Reuters Journalists out there who want to blog ‘publicly’ then let me know. I run Reuters Newsblogs (that Brian mentioned above) and I can create you account and take you through how to publish etc. Normal Reuters rules apply - fact based reporting, two-pairs of eyes, attribution to sources etc.
March 10th, 2006 at 7:25 am
“There’s no monopoly on being in the right place at the right time.â€
It is the monopoly of money.
Being in the right place at the right time has a cost that the journalist “in fieri” couldn,t afford.
He can be a better writer, a better commenter, but till now he was not able to express himself.
What Media will face in the near future is competition.
From the small man of the road.
Because hardware and broadcasting means have change to a point that whoever can be a writer and an editor.
Of course he also needs some brain.
It will be the competiton of brains more than the competition of means.
This capitalistic society will have to revaluate the human part and the skill.
A big newspaper could in theory loose the game against a one man journalist.
At the end of the day this small man could win for the simple reason he does something he likes to do, he wants to do, he believes in.
Which is something many journalists do not have any more.
That is the freedom to say what they really think and not what they think the reader would like to read, or what is convenient that the reader reads.
Which is something that once they used to call truth and meant truth.
Yes the Internet is exactly that, the Revolution of our generation.
It will take some time, but it will be.
March 20th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
[...] This is an amazing post about a Keynote Address given by Tom Glocer, CEO of Reuters. Check it out. [...]
April 6th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
[...] Jarvis, Jeff. “Reuters Gets It†BuzzMachine. 3/2/06. http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/ 03/02/1205/ Viewed 3/16/06. [...]
May 4th, 2006 at 3:52 am
[...] We start with Tom Glocer, head of Reuters, (his last speech here) who says that the plumbing (read: media) doesn’t matter, the message does. Note again that the smartest media execs in the world are trying their best to throw off the shackles of their media. Reuters’ media history includes horses, pigeons, boats, and wires. He says that Reuters has an advantage over other media, trapped in schedules, because they’ve always been 24/7. Note that he is competing with those in other media. [...]
May 14th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
[...] Jarvis, Jeff. “Reuters Gets It†BuzzMachine. 3/2/06. http://www.buzzmachine.com/index.php/2006/ 03/02/1205/ Viewed 3/16/06. [...]
May 21st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Were do i find some new MS layouts?
Thanks,
Steve
June 5th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Which is something many journalists do not have any more.
That is the freedom to say what they really think and not what they think the reader would like to read, or what is convenient that the reader reads.
June 5th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Yes the Internet is exactly that, the Revolution of our generation.
It will take some time, but it will be.
June 8th, 2006 at 6:47 am
[...] O PATRÃO da Reuters falou do jornalismo do futuro na conferência da Online Publishers Association e o que ele disse é mesmo importante. Jeff Jarvis, da Buzz Machine, comenta a intervenção. Segundo o journalism.co.uk, a principal novidade do discurso terá sido o relaxamento dos direitos de autor da agência a favor dos bloggers: We like to encourage bloggers to take our RSS feed content and start a conversation around it,†Kiss quoted him as saying. So if a blogger copies and pastes one of our stories on their site, you won’t find us going after them. [...]
June 24th, 2006 at 7:13 am
[...] Shane Richmond, news editor of Telegraph.co.uk, is writing a most sensible blog where he sometimes beats his newspaper cohorts upside the head about the ways of the future. In this post, he argues that journalists must be seeders, not leaders (echoing Reuters chief Tom Glocer). And here he says to those complaining about Google and aggregators: Deal with it. [...]