FTC Changes Date for Journalism Workshop

The Federal Trade Commission announced that a planned Sept 15 workshop on journalism has been delayed to December 1 and 2, 2009. "From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" will bring competition, consumer protection, and First Amendment perspectives to bear on the financial, technological, and other challenges facing the news industry as consumers increasingly turn to the Internet for free news and information, advertisers increasingly move their ads onto online sites and reduce advertising buys as a result of the recession, and news organizations struggle with large debt that was taken on when times were better. The workshops will consider a wide range of issues, including: the economics of journalism and how those economics are playing out on the Internet and in print; the wide variety of new business and non-profit models for journalism online; factors relevant to the new economic realities for news organizations, such as behavioral and other targeted online advertising, online news aggregators, and bloggers; and the variety of governmental policies - including antitrust, copyright, and tax policy - that have been raised as possible means of finding new ways for journalism to thrive. Witnesses will include journalists and other representatives of news organizations, privacy experts, direct marketers, online advertisers, academics, new media representatives (such as bloggers and local news Web sites), and consumer advocates. An agenda for the December 1 and 2, 2009, workshops will be circulated at a later time.