Rji-interview-steffens-ceppos

Brian Steffen's notes from the conversation with Jerry Ceppos:

• We're not convinced that journalism is "broken." It changes, morphs, adapts & always has. Cave drawings, tribal

storytellers, posters, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cable, web, mobile. And written stories, photojournalism, info graphics, audio, video, slideshows, mashups, etc. It will continue to do so. The fundamentals remain: tackle stories/issues/concepts that matter to the community (geographic or subject), investigate/collect/report diligently, source and verify to the best of our abilities, make sense of chaos or multiple inputs, assemble/disassemble/edit and present in ways the information can b easily absorbed, and make it relevant to the audience.

• We can certainly, always, strive to improve what we do and how we do it. But there are thousands of people and institutions out there already that are sincerely focused on fixing or improving journalism.

• What we believe to be broken, in need of fixing, is the business model(s) or sustainability of the journalism.

Where are the think tanks, innovation centers, symposiums and industry-wide FOCUS on identifying business and marketing opportunities, the experiments to test those opportunities? The experiments have tended to focus on various iterations of non-profit enterprise. Noble, yes, some cobble together enough grants and donations to keep the lights on. But when the big lawsuit lands on their desk, where are the deep pockets or in-house talent to fight the good fight and continue to keep the doors open? Small is beautiful, but it's not often a match for big business and big government.