Crossmedia Journalism (1)

Introduction

Yesterday I attended a conference on Crossmedia Journalism at the Journalism department of the HU college in Utrecht. Almost 100 journalists, consultants, lecturers and students were present.

In his introduction Mr Han Smits, the director of the school, mentioned that the School for Journalism will celebrate its 40 years jubilee this year. The School does not only have the task of teaching, but also of knowledge generation. He was happy to announce that the School will get 4 extra lecturers plus staff next years as well as a laboratory for journalism.

Introducing the subject of the conference he observed that there is a decline of mono media, as people can access newspapers, radio and television and internet. People are also looking for personal information and easily join small communities. As they can download and upload, active consumers can contribute to the discussion with their own texts, photographs and movies. Smits implied that there is a relationship between crossmedia and citizens’ journalism. For journalism it means a new round and new chances.

The program had a variety of representatives from the media: Bob Witman of the national newspaper Volkskrant, Michiel Bicker Caarten of BNR Newsradio, Bart Brouwer of the freesheet Spits, Bernadette Slotboom of the Public Broadcast System and Bart van Ootmerssum of the regional newspaper AD. In the afternoon Paul Molenaar of the online publisher Ilse.nl, an alumni of the School of Journalism, was followed by Peter Verweij, a lecturer New Media at the School. The day was closed with the keynote of Jaap Stronks, a media researcher.

My general impression of the speakers was that newspapers use internet as extensions (multiple channels); that journalism does not cooperate with advertisement for crossmedia projects. It is clear that traditional organisations have problems of acquiring and integrating crossmedia in their organisations and their business models. I will report more on the conference. In fact I will produce another five postings on it, starting with the keynote, as Jaap Stronks called for a re-orientation on crossmedia.

Tags: crossmedia, journalism

Blog Posting Number: 416