Gordon Crovitz, ex-WSJ publisher and co-founder of start-up Journalism Online, joins paywall panel on 29th October

Arguably, the Holy Grail for newspapers has been how to get consumers to pay a reasonable price for online content. An increasing number of publishers in the US and internationally think that Gordon Grovitz and his partners at the technology start-up Journalism Online may just have found it.

In August, four months after setting up business, the company announced that more than 500 newspapers, magazines and online-based news sites in the United States and around the world had signed "Letters of Intent" with them. “Just one month later, we have passed 1,000, reaching more than 100 million online users, and the pace is accelerating," said Crovitz in a company statement.

On 29th October, Crovitz, who had walked out of this jobs as Publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Executive Vice-President of Dow Jones & Company, and president of the Company’s Consumer Media Group, when News Corp took over, will discuss his new project in greater detail when he contributes to a panel discussion about online paywalls at the 13th Journalism Leaders Forum in Preston.

Other confirmed panellists are:

• Frédéric Filloux, editor for the international division of the Norwegian media giant Schibsted ASA and co-author of the Monday Note .


• Martha Stone, director of the World Association of Newspapers-IFRA’s Shaping the Future of the Newspaper project


• Robert Andrews, UK Editor of paidContent.com.

François Nel , director of the Journalism Leaders Programme at UCLan, will be in the chair discussion on, 'Paywalls: build them, break them - or look beyond them"

To attend the open Forum at 6pm in Greenbank Lecture Theatre - as well as the reception from 5pm - please register soonest. There is no charge, but seating is limited.



If you can't be there in person, you can also participate online. The Forum will be Webcast live. More details here.

Play it again - the 9th Forum on Making Money

This much is clear from the 9th Journalism Leaders Forum: great minds shouldn’t be thinking alike.

The mainstream media companies who have struggled to take advantage of the expanding – and profitable - media landscape will need to do things differently. Or do more things differently. Or do more of the different things faster. Ultimately, of course, success will come to those who do the right amount of the right things at the right pace. And step one is to think differently.

Perspectives on the question, ‘If the media landscape is changing, why aren’t [many mainstream] media companies?’ from Silicon Valley (Chris Anderson), an internnational digital market intelligence company (Anton Grutzmacher), a UK media industry analyst (Peter Kirwan), a digital news entrepreneur (Rick Waghorn) were chaired by online journalism author and academic (Mike Ward). Add to that an audience of Trinity Mirror editors involved in the Journalism Leaders Programme, Digital Editors Network and others in the room and online, and you’ve got a dynamic and, potentially, very useful discussion.

If you missed it, you can see an unedited recording here.

Diary note: the 10th Forum & Digital Editors Network workshop is on 14th October & the full calendar for 2008-9 is here. Applications for the next Leaders course is also now being accepted.

Also see comments from: Oliver Luft , Andy Dickinson & Joanna Geary in text or vid.

Additional links, comments and suggestions for the next Forums – themes and panellists – would be much appreciated.

9th Forum: Why isn't more media translating into more money for mainstream media companies?

Update (17/04) : Confirmed panellists are: Chris Anderson of 'The Long Tail', Anton Grutzmacher of Hitwise, Peter Kirwan of the Press Gazette's Media Money and Rick Waghorn of www.myfootballwriter.com.


For mainstream media companies, the new Holy Grail or Holy Grail 2.0, if you will, is finding a sustainable business model for the Digital Age. While few now still argue that the old scarcity-economy model is broke, a look at the declining share prices of major media houses makes it clear that, despite much talk and even some action, still fewer are thought to have discovered how to fix it.

Last month, no less than Marc Andreessen (founder of Netscape & Ning) inaugurated “the New York Times Deathwatch” — and, as Dan Gilmore (would-be citizen journalism entrepreneur-turned-academic) in a blog post entitled, New York Times Needs to Wake Up: “the data he cites should be giving the Times-folk nightmares”.

This month, Chris Anderson (the Wired magazine editor who gave us The Long Tail ) asserted that “everything that becomes digital eventually becomes free” – and, I suspect, the data he cites will be giving everyone in the mainstream media nightmares.

Given that more people are consuming more media than ever before, a stark question arises: ‘If the media landscape is booming, why aren’t media companies?”

This is theme for the 9th Journalism Leaders Forum at Preston on 29 April 2008.

Amongst the confirmed panellists are Paul Bradshaw, author of the Online Journalism Blog and convenor of the recent Journalism Enterprise & Entrepreneurship Camp; Karen Swan, marketing head for Trinity Mirror Regionals; and Anton Grutzmacher, head of client services at the market intelligence company, Hitwise.

Joining the conversation from the audience will be participants in the Trinity Mirror Editorial Leaders Programme and Digital Editors Network members. Taking us through the issues will be Mike Ward, author of Journalism Online and head of journalism at UCLan.

To attend this free programme at 6pm on Tuesday, 29th April in Greenbank Lecture Theatre in Preston - as well as the networking reception from 5pm - please RSVP to leaders[at]ukjournalism[do]ac[dot]uk.

If you can't be there in person, there are other ways to join the discussion. You can post your questions and comments on this site, or you can view the live Webcast by logging in as a guest at: http://breeze01.uclan.ac.uk/journalismleadersforum/. Online participants will be able to post questions to panelists in a text chat room.

For more information about this and other activities of the Journalism Leaders Programme, which partners with media companies to develop leadership talent and strategic solutions for the Digital Age, visit the programme website or contact me, François Nel, by email (FPNel@uclan . ac . uk) or Skype (francoisnel).