SacredFacts

Quotes of the Year

Some of the quotes I noted through the year - feel free to add your own favourites..

Newspapers, including at least a few very good newspapers, will survive, simply put, because of that basic law of market economics: supply and demand. The supply of what we produce is sadly diminishing. And the demand has never been greater.

(Bill Keller - Hugo Young Lecture)
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"It seems to be a great time to be starting out in journalism. Just don’t ask advice from anyone who has been in the business for more than five years."

(Saul Hansell - NYT Blog)
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You can get junk food on every high street. And you can get junk journalism nowadays in
every outlet there is. But just as there is now a movement for Slow Cooking, I should
also like to see more of a demand for Slow Journalism

(David Leigh - inaugural City Uni lecture)
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The adjustment we’re being asked to make is to a world of increased access, new competition and different business models. It’s not about easing onto the obit page.
The journey to the next generation news begins with us believing in ourselves and what we do.

(Tom Curley - speech)
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the people of Burma "demonstrated that the tools of information technology can have a strong impact on the global coverage of events as they are unfolding and sometimes on the events themselves. The events in Burma also provide a chilling example of the limitations of the internet, access to which was ultimately vulnerable to the unilateral choices of a repressive regime.."

(OpenNet report into internet shutdown in Burma)
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we are too willing to surrender privacy for an illusory sense of emotional connection and security. Perhaps we will realise what a poor bargain we have struck only after it is too late.

(Jeffrey Rosen - Spiked Online)
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It's not an appeal to better standards, it's not an appeal to quality or tradition. It has no aspirations to honour. It's disingenuous to the core, manipulative of the people, anti-progressive, cynical and hypocritical.

(Tom Coates on Andrew Keen)
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I lived through things which before I would have struggled to imagine and maybe, in the end, I will be stronger for that. I have gained too a deeper sense of the value of freedom. Perhaps only if you have ever been some kind of prisoner, can you truly understand its worth.

(Alan Johnston on his release)
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the fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.

(Tony Blair speaking at the Reuters Institute)
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"Online is where the action is...print is there to amplify. Social networks are the new cities;most news breaks very quickly on these networks."

(Mario Garcia - World Editors Forum)
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"News stories should answer questions and tie up loose ends. Blogs should pose questions and leave some ends dangling to encourage debate."

(Kevin Anderson - The Innovation Forum)
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Our sense remains, too, that traditional journalism is not, as some suggest, becoming irrelevant. There is more evidence now that new technology companies have had either limited success in news gathering (Yahoo, AOL), or have avoided it altogether (Google). Whoever owns them, old newsrooms now seem more likely than a few years ago to be the foundations for the newsrooms of the future. But practicing journalism has become far more difficult and demands new vision. Journalism is becoming a smaller part of people’s information mix. The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows. Journalists have reacted relatively slowly. They are only now beginning to re-imagine their role.

(State of the News Media 2007)
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the internet is "a mass medium providing mostly illusory interactivity and mostly illusory diversity....
"The evolution of the online news agency has laid bare the news industries' near total dependence on a few wholesale news providers and the limitations on public discourse that it inevitably yields."

(Leeds University research into dominance of news agencies on the internet)
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"Bloggers suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, journalists suffer from Attention deficit disorder."

(Arianna Huffington at WEF)

DAvos 07: How was it for you?

I blogged earlier this week about some NGOs feeling left out of some of the big discussions here. Since then others have approached me to say the same thing - "It's returned to a corporate conversation" they claim. One academic, who has moderated and spoken on a number of panels, said he felt he was there solely for the benefit of the corporate delegates rather than for his own benefit.

Certainly this is the most blogged Forum ever - wildly so at times - and the organisers are hoping that will have brought diversity to the conversation. But another academic complained that even the blogging was corporate.

Others, however, say it was ever thus. "Every year people say it's not like it was - and what do people expect? In the end it's the big corporations that pay and make the event possible."

As Gordon Brown said yesterday, the challenge for politicians today is to have an inclusive discussion about the big issues facing the world - no more smoke filled rooms. The WEF, since the sometimes violent protests of the 1990s, has struggled to find the right way to do so while preserving a secure environment for decision makers and leaders. However a degree of scepticism about the conference is inevitable - and it's true that the real discussions here still happen off stage and out of sight.

For my part, the opportunity to bring the debate and views of the world's decision makers to our weekly audience of 200 million people around the world makes it a unique and valuable occasion. Coupled with that, I am able to have discussions with potential editorial partners and sponsors for our commercial services that would otherwise take months to hold. And I leave better informed than when I arrived and, yes I admit it, even inspired by some of what I've heard - particularly from the social entrepreneurs working on practical solutions to the world's problems.

The real test, of course, is not what people say in the rarified alpine air - but what they go back and do afterwards.

Davos 07: Breakfast with Bill and Melinda

Gates, that is, in conversation with Tom Friedman of the New York Times. A lot of discussion about their Foundation - whose vision is that "all lives on the planet are equal." They started, and continue, with long term investment in developing vaccines for HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Investment which may not pay off for 10 to 15 years. But they have expanded into more immediate relief of suffering with drugs for disease and, with the endowment from Warren Buffet last year, are now moving into microfinance and microlending to help people lift themselves out of poverty by developing agriculture in particular. And that's just the Health programme - there's Education too. Theirs is, I suppose, the biggest current example of American philanthropy. As Bill put it:" The rich world has not been as generous to the developing world as it needs to be."

With Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, about to be launched we were given a clue about what to expect. A lot of applications you have to currently download - spyware, destop search, - will be built in. It will be "user centric rather than product centric" and the extra functionality will not cost more or require different hardware.

And he had a vision of the future of the media. For those of us involved in the many discussions about whether newspapers can survive online he believed online micropayments and the development of multiple ad markets would mean the businesses would survive. But more than that he believed technology would develop so that the convenience of online newspapers would "overwhelm print". And he was surprised that people had not recognised the huge revolution in TV that was about to break upon us. On-demand TV over the internet would provide huge choice and the end of the linear schedule with all of its inconvenience. TV online would open up creativity and the "long tail" of niche interest content. As it happens, I agree and have been saying so for some time. But strangely people seem more interested when it's Bill Gates saying it....

Davos 07: Does not compute?

There is an unspoken undercurrent in many of the debates here. I have been trying to put my finger on it and I think it's this: the economic forecasts are strong, business is good and continues to grow. But set against that is a formidable range of long-term risks and political instability - Iraq and the middle east, the possible consequences of climate change, a big realignment of the global economy with the rise of China and India, the major disruption to traditional businesses caused by the internet and more. Somehow these two "currents" of discussion don't sit together. Or to put it another way, can it last?

Davos 07: Who's driving the debate?

"Seeing Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth was a tipping point for me". The speaker was Klaus Kleinfeld, the CEO of Siemens, one of the world's biggest technology companies. The BBC World debate was exploring who is driving the change of attitude towards climate change - the public, business or politics. Personal impressions seemed to be critical.  The younger generation were clearly influencing their parents. " My 15 year old daughter said this problem was created by my generation, that she was scared and angry and we better fix it," said one silicon valley entrepreneur. Science had mobilised public opinion , business was now reacting, but there was  a mixed verdict on the politicians. A BBC poll showed that only one person in 5 thinks the issue is being taken seriously enough - but only 50 % were prepared to compromise their own standard of living to make a difference. And there lies the dilemma - between talk and action - for individuals as well as for politicians and businesses.

Business saw an opportunity. What society wants, there's money to be made providing. That was true of "green energy" as much as anything else. It might also be a solution to the developing world emissions which are, unsurprisingly, growing at an alarming rate. "We can provide the clean technology which can allow them to develop with lower emissions" said one.

For David Miliband, the British Environment Secretary, Climate Change was now a "Threshold Issue" - like inflation or security. If you can't show you "get it" you are unelectable, he said. Even politicians unconvinced by the science agreed with that.

DAvos 07: Does anyone out there like me?

"If you want an employee who is really efficient and dependable advertise for a woman who has never had an orgasm." It's not all big issues at Davos. For the last two years one of the sell-out sessions has been with sex therapist and psychologist Dagmar O'Connor. She talks about improving relationships and self-esteem. Her advice seems to be eagerly sought by the CEOs and particularly their spouses trying to balance their power-driven lives. Her message seems to  be "Love yourself and remember it's OK not to be perfect" - not an idea that is always accepted in business or public life. But after some frank discussion and tales of dysfunctional relationships most leave the session at least feeling their own lives may not be as bad as they feared. I can tell you more for £45 and hour.....

Davos 07: Inside or Outside the Tent?

I've picked up a little concern among some NGOs that they may be sidelined at this year's meeting. There are more than a dozen sessions on climate change, for example, but only a handful have an NGO representative on the panel, they say. The good news from their perspective? Politics and business have recognised the issue. The bad news? They see the issue being de-politicised and discussion being less diverse. It's what Simon Zadek of Accountability calls "painful mainstreaming".

And where is the development agenda of two years ago in the run up to the Gleneagles G8 Meeting? Certainly not as prominent as it was. (Certainly no sign of the protests of a few years ago, and the forum seems to be looking to the bloggers to provide an alternative perspective.)

Others dispute the claim and say that, in any case, NGOs have other platforms - what matters is that business and politics are starting to act.

Davos 07: The business of poverty

A lot of the most interesting things are to be discovered on the edges of the conference. I went to a breakfast this morning hosted by a Silicon Valley technology company, Applied Materials, who sponsor technology awards for "social entrepreneurs" making a difference in the developing world. Among those honoured: Kickstart, a company which produces cheap manual pumps for small farmers in Kenya and Tanzania to irrigate their land and start to produce crops all year round; the Barefoot College, which teaches women from poor communities around the world to become solar energy engineers and go back to bring power to their villages; the Fritz Institute which helps improve the distribution of aid in disasters; Gram Vikas which works in the poorest parts of India providing solar pumps to improve sanitation; the Freeplay Foundation which provides robust wind-up radios to remote parts of Africa. All great projects making a tangible difference in the world. There followed an interesting discussion about how the skills of Silicon valley can be used to support development.

Davos is also a great place to launch things. Yesterday the UNHCR with Nike and Microsoft launched ninemillion.org - a new campaign to provide education and sport to the worlds nine million refugee children.

Davos 07: Digital Futures

I am at a meeting of the WEF Media Leaders Council - editors, publishers and journalists from major news organisations - and blogs - around the world. The UK is well represented with the editors of the FT, the Telegraph, the Guardian and The Times all here as well as me. The discussion is about how media companies can adapt to the internet - the constant subject of debate for such people. It's under Chatham House rules so I cannot report the discussion or attribute comments verbatim. However I can share some observations:
Mathias Dopfner of the German group Axel Springer AG was quoted having written:"We must be careful not to commit suicide for fear of dying". In other words media organisations should not abandon their core values in the face of huge online competition or they will die anyway.
One internet entrepreneur said "The challenge isn't content anymore. It's organising it, the architecture of content is the new challenge." He was referring to sites like Flickr and Facebook.
One long-standing newspaper publisher said "Newspapers used to dominate the national conversation. Now we have to find ways to join the conversations that are going on elsewhere." In other words bloggers and others don't need national media to discuss events anymore - but to stay relevant newspapers have to join those discussions, not just stage their own.
A lot of concern about how companies can make internet services pay when the public expect them for free.
Finally, a neat way of differentiating journalists and bloggers. "Bloggers suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, journalists suffer from Attention deficit disorder." In other words, journalists report and move on and don't always follow up. Bloggers are obsessive, get hold of an issue and won't let go....

Davos 07: Time for Business

The International Herald Tribune - the daily journal for Davos Man - has a report from here on its front page about global leaders recognising the need for stronger multilateral institutions as the world becomes more vulnerable to climate change, bird flu, terrorism and so on. However it's some of the other news items which point strongly to the timliness of this year's theme "The Shifting Power Equation". "Sun may be setting on Silicon Valley Supremacy" runs one headline reporting on the growth of European high tech innovation. And even "Macao outstrips Vegas as top gambling centre" reflecting the rise of the east. There's a strong sense of tectonic plates shifting. As Klaus Schwab, who runs the World Economic Forum, says: "power is shifting from the centre to the periphery and from the top to the bottom". So no time for Hollywood celebrities this year (no Brad and Angelina or Sharon Stone as in the past - although Bobo still slips in). It's time to get serious seems to be the message.