Shaping Media Policy for the 21st Century

The recession has compounded the financial turmoil faced by institutions of the press. Newspapers have closed, media ownership has consolidated, and few companies have been able to build sufficient revenue through online distribution. Moreover, as the recently issued Knight Report, Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in a Digital Age, stated: “The digital age is creating an information and communications renaissance. But it is not serving all Americans and their local communities equally.”

The New America Foundation’s Media Policy Initiative was pleased to welcome the Federal Communications Commission’s Steve Waldman in conversation with Michael Kinsley. Waldman who is leading an initiative at the FCC to examine the future of media at a moment when policy intervention in the media space will have profound implications for decades to come. He discussed the policy questions he is facing with Kinsley, one of America’s most innovative news editors. Steve Coll, President of the New America Foundation, former senior editor at The Washington Post and staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, introduced the speakers. Tom Glaisyer moderated the discussion.

Although Waldman and Kinsley’s candid conversation focused for the most part on the future of journalism in the digital age, Waldman began the event by speaking about the public interest in the changing media ecosystem. The FCC has an interest in the information needs of communities, Waldman said, and re-examine the public interest obligation in a digital world. Waldman declined, however, to give away answers on the subject, saying that the FCC would delve more deeply into this question and others at its March 4, 2010 workshop.

What became clear in the subsequent discussion on journalism is that even though there is innovation at the hyper-local level the accountability journalism that has played a watchdog role at the city level isn’t yet replaced by citizen bloggers. Kinsley, unafraid to critique traditional media of the past suggested that the nostalgia for the past is perhaps misplaced. Waldman, in response, suggested that the goal has to be something better than the media we’ve known and that it should build on the best of the on the best of the traditional journalism and utilize the strengths that the internet brings.

Participants

Introduction
Steve Coll
President, New America Foundation

Featured Speakers
Steven Waldman
Senior Advisor to the Chairman of the FCC, Office of Strategic Planning

Michael Kinsley
Senior Editor, The Atlantic

Moderator
Tom Glaisyer
Knight Media Policy Fellow
New America Foundation