In the middle of the panel called MEDIA: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE at Sunday’s LA Times Festival of Books, Marc Cooper made news—or at least mini-news—when he remarked in passing that the Sacramento Bee feels it does not have the staff to adequately cover the upcoming race for governor—at least the So Cal part of the race—so they are looking to partner with the Annenberg School of Journalism in the hope that they can use student reporters can fill in the gap.

Now keep in mind that the Bee has the largest number of reporters covering the state capitol of any California media outlet. So if they’re in trouble covering an issue of state government….even the So Cal part…. this is a sign that spoke loudly to the subject of the panel.

As yet, Marc said, no deals have been struck.

(NOTE TO SAC’TO BEE: as you are a (theoretically) a profit making enterprise, you have to pay any students whom you use. You know that, right?)

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THAT SAME FUTURE OF MEDIA PANEL was one of the festival’s big, sell-out events, with just as many people outside the auditorium, waiting in line in the hope of getting a seat, as those who were already seated.

The panel featured the aforementioned Marc Cooper, Arianna Huffington, Sharon Waxman (of the excellent new site covering entertainment news The Wrap), and Andrew Donohue, editor of the Voice of San Diego (the online newspaper that many see as one of the crucial new biz models). James Rainey, the LA Times media columnist was the moderator.

Before the panel started, the crowd was admonished that there could be “no recording” in the auditorium.

A bit later, Arianna remarked dryly that, at a panel about the future of media, “asking people not to record the session is absurd.” At this the crowd applauded vigorously.

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During the hour plus (the panel ran overtime), much was said on the subject of monitization—which is inevitably the BIG TOPIC for every one of these panels. Among some of the better remarks were the following:

Arianna said, in her deadpan Greek drawl, that the only sure fire content that people are willing to pay for is porn. “People are willing to pay for weird porn,” she said. The crowd laughed.

Cooper followed with, “This is the first time in history when the right to publish is not in the abstract. Anyone can do it.” But we’re not going to know the business model for a while…..The old system is dead. The new system has yet to be invented.” He likened the present cultural moment to three or four decades after Johannes Gutenberg introduced his little invention.

Huffington: It’s time that newspaper editors admit that we cannot go back to the old model when content is behind a wall. If that’s where they go, they are going to fail. Consumer habits have changed.

Rainey: “I kind of liked the old world when Walter Cronkite was involved…. and when we were behind that wall.” He was kidding. Sort of.

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Rainey also asked the other question that is always, always, always front and center during these FOM (Future of Media) discussions, namely: Where is all the great investigative work going to come from?

Cooper, Huffington and Waxman each leaned quickly toward their mics to say that great reporting isn’t going away, and that, in any case, it is produced by individuals not institutions, and that while great work came out of conventional media—there was also a lot of mediocre work too, and many many stories that were missed, and that new media has moved into that gap.

Waxman: “Only when you work for the New York Times, do you understand how much a part of the establishment that the New York Times is.” (Waxman used to work for the NY Times.)

Huffington: “Where were the mainstream journalists covering the whole Wall Street mess? They completely missed that story. And they’re still missing it.”

Cooper: Some of the reporting may come from non-journalists “who are not stupid, by the way. You don’t have to go to journalism school to be a journalist. I didn’t go to journalism school,” he added—which was another big applause line.

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When asked to list the publications she looked at each morning, Sharon Waxman listed all the electronic outlets and news feeds she peruses, then she said, “And I do look at…..” and she paused for thought. Rainey jumped in. “The LA Times?”

Right, said Waxman, as the audience laughed, “the LA Times.”

“Don’t make me beg here,” said Rainey.

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At some point a woman from the audience asked what would happen to longform journalism—what with everyone’s diminishing attention span and all. Was it as good as dead? The panel seemed stymied.

Then Andrew Donohue, who had said little during the hour, spoke up. Well, he said, actually, people will read long narrative or investigative pieces, particularly when they are run as a series. “We regularly run 10,000 word series….and our readership goes up when we do.” The key is, Donohue said, they have to be good, not boring.

(Yep. That’s the key alright—a point with which I repeatedly hector my Lit Journalism students.)
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In the “greenroom,” where all the authors, panelists, and miscellaneous LA literary types hang out during the two day festival, there was much talk and gossip about the same topics as those discussed by the panel—plus the other big subject: the future of publishing.

On that count, literary agent Betsy Amster said she’s a new convert to the Sony Reader, Sony’s answer to the Kindle. “I love it. It makes me feel like reading’s suddenly fun again, like it was when I was a kid,” she said.

Bonnie Nadell (agent to the late and still missed David Foster Wallace, among others) said, as she cruised through the buffet line to grab some fresh vegetables, that people still want to read as much as they ever did. “I don’t see the demand for books going away at all,” she said. I told her about Amster’s new Sony Reader infatuation. She nodded sagely and said that manuscripts are now sent to her and other agents for the Kindle and the Sony reader, and it’s actually pretty great.

The 130,000 plus people who swarmed happily around the UCLA campus all day Saturday and Sunday, purely for the love of reading, seemed to agree: Books are not going away. Not even a little bit.

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PS: THE TWO PANELS THAT EVERYONE BUZZED ABOUT—just because they were so damned funny—-were those that featured my pal Tod Goldberg—plus some other very witty people like, novelist Seth Greenland, cartoonist, Lalo Alcaraz, and the Daily Show’s Larry Wilmore.

And listen: I’m not saying this because Tod’s my friend, I’m telling you the unvarnished truth.

See you there next year.

NEWSPAPERS AND THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

I realize I often put up multiple posts that are labeled MUST READ. But for any of you involved in the future-of-journalism discussion, this essay by Clay Shirky is a no-kidding, you-really-have-to-read-this item:

NYU Professor and new media go-to thinker, Clay Shirky, has written an what is essentially a brilliant think piece about what is, and is not, and will never again be…. happening in the newspaper business.

As you’ll see, I’ve got a sample clip below, but this is not really an essay one can easily sample. Shirky has a first rate mind and his musings and prognostications about communications and the media are nearly always shatteringly good.

This one, which is flying around the web at a rapid rate, is essential.

….Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad.

[SNIP]

When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse…..

Then once you’ve read Shirky’s piece, read this from the Washington Post and….lets just say, the latter kinda illustrates the former.

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PELOSI TO DOJ: WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING ANTITRUST REGS

Worried about the fate of the SF Chronicle, and other financially drowning newspapers, on Monday Nancy Pelosi made a pitch to the U.S. Justice Department to drop antitrust regulations for media mergers that might save papers such as the Chron.

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PROFILING THE LAST DAY OF THE SEATTLE P-I

The Seattle pub, The Stranger, did a nice and humanistic job of covering the last day of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Seattle P-I will now be operating online only with a very, very trimmed down news staff of 20 people.

Here’s the publisher’s video announcement.

And in an upbeat, make-lemonade-type statement, Hearst Newspapers President Steven Swartz said the P-I “isn’t a newspaper online—it’s an effort to craft a new type of digital business with a robust, community news and information Web site at its core.”

Okay. Well, we truly hope so.

This week’s Time Magazine predicts the next 10 papers to fold or go all-digital. It is a sobering list.

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UPDATE: SKIP TO THE END for today’s sad news about the 146-year old Seattle Post Intelligencer.

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1. Philadelphia Daily News
2. Minneapolis Star-Tribune
3. Miami Herald
4. Detroit News
5. Boston Globe
6. San Francisco Chronicle
7. Chicago Sun-Times
8. New York Daily News
9. Ft. Worth Star Telegram
10. Cleveland Plain Dealer

Here is their reasoning:

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy, as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close the San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts. The most recent rumor is that the company will lay off half the editorial staff. Still, that action may not be enough to make the property profitable.

24/7 Wall St. has created a list of the 10 major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shutter their print operations and only publish online. The properties were chosen on the basis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it’s possible that 8 of the nation’s 50 largest daily newspapers could cease publication in the next 18 months

These are the worst of times and the best of times. The worst for obvious reasons: Local and state news coverage is shrinking with the speed of melting icicles. Thousands of people are losing their jobs. Newspapers reek of desperation. Many important stories are simply not being covered

But also the best, because the nature of media and newsgathering is being democratized…reshaped…transformed…right now.

Intense and genuinely creative discussions (even if they are somewhat jittery) about the future of the news and the media are going on in many corners, and certainly at every journalism school in America. I take part in many at Annenberg.

Uncertain times, but also exciting.

UPDATE: MORE SAD NEWS: For nearly a week we’ve been hearing that the Seattle Post Intelligencer will go online only with a greatly reduced staff if they are unable to sell. (The Seattle PI incidentally, which has won its share of Pulitzers in its 146 years, has been doing great coverage of the W. R. Grace trial and was the paper that first broke the story).

Poynter reports that today the sales window has closed. Out of the paper’s 180 or so editorial staff, only about 20 have gotten offers to stay.

Already one of its star online columnists has decided to jump ship. Joseph Tartakoff, whose Microsoft Blog, reportedly accounts for one-fourth of the Seattle PI’s online hits, is going elsewhere. And the Washington Post online has an interview with the paper’s editorial cartoonist, David Horsey, titled How a Cartoonist Survives If Ink Newspaper Dies.

This is all sad, sad news indeed.