National newspapers confess to digital shortcomings

The New Media Knowledge (NMK) ‘What Happens to Newspapers?’ event last night was an almost spiritual experience, not least because of the vaulted venue provided by Lansons Communications. Listening to a load of national newspapers admit they’d been ‘playing catch up for years’ and promising to be ‘faster and more radical’ was a bit like gate-crashing a mass Fleet Street confessional

The panel was an impressive line-up – guardian.co.uk’s head of editorial development Neil Mcintosh, Telegraph Media Group assistant editor Justin Williams, Retail Week online editor Martin Stabe, The Journalist editor Tim Gopsill and Northcliffe Media director of digital publishing Mike Rowley. It was fascinating to listen to the newspaper bunch speak of the need for younger, more digital-savvy talent and streamlining the editing process to boost content volume and reduce cost.

My only criticism of the event was that the panel was entirely dominated by ‘old media’. It would have triggered a much more dynamic debate if there was some representation from professional bloggers or founders of successful online community sites – the ‘new media’ that is really challenging the old.

Tags: NMK-newspapers

Comments

[Ian Delaney]

Many thanks for coming along. I am so sorry we didn't get to speak.

In response to your criticism: fair play. However, you'll agree that it was a massive topic to pull off in an evening debate and the focus was 'newspapers'.

Cheers, and hope we catch up next time.

[Daryl Willcox]

It certainly is a massive topic - you did well to squeeze so much into the session.

It was remiss of me not to wander over and say hello - will do next time.