Conference To Examine the Changing Nature of Journalism

Journalists and news industry executives from across the country will gather at Harvard on May 22 for an in-depth discussion of the impact that the business of news has on editorial decisions.

The daylong conference is the 10th in a series of 19 forums taking place across the country examining the changing nature of modern journalism and the impact those changes have on journalistic ethics and standards.

The conference, which is free and open to the public, will examine how Wall Street's expectations affect news operations, whether the bottom line affects coverage, and ways the business and editorial sides of a news operation can cooperate.

"It's one of the most important issues confronting journalists today," said William Kovach, curator of the Nieman Fellowships at Harvard's Nieman Foundation.

The increasing pressure on news operations to be profitable also raises the question of whether profit and loss are the best measures of success for a news operation -- which has a public service mission, Kovach said.

"Is [profitability] the right mechanism to drive a business that's protected under the Constitution because it provides a public service?" he asked.

The conference series is sponsored by the Committee of Concerned Journalists, formed in 1997 by Kovach, Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and other journalists who are concerned about journalism's future in this country. The May 22 conference is being cosponsored by WGBH's David Kuhn Memorial Fund and The Boston Globe.

The conference will open with remarks from Kovach, who is chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, Matthew Storin, editor of The Boston Globe, and Henry Becton, president and general manager of the WGBH Educational Foundation. Professor James Carey of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism will present an overview of the program.

Conference participants include prominent executives from both the business and editorial sides of news organizations. They include:

Business: Diane Baker, former chief financial officer of the New York Times Co.; Stuart Garner, president and chief executive officer of Thomson Newspapers; Kevin Gruneich, senior managing director of Bear, Sterns and Co.; Benjamin Taylor, publisher of The Boston Globe; and Mark Willes, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Times Mirror Co.

Editorial: Jim Amoss, editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune; Phil Balboni, president of New England Cable News; Gregory Favre, executive editor of The Sacramento Bee; Maxwell King, associate editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer; and William Wheatley, vice president of NBC News.

John Morton, newspaper analyst and president of Morton Research Inc. will moderate both panels. Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University Law School, will moderate an afternoon discussion of the combined panels with the addition of Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, and Nancy Hicks Maynard, director of the Economics of News Project and former publisher of The Oakland Tribune.

The Committee of Concerned Journalists is holding other public forums around the country to clarify the core purpose and principles of journalism. Each forum has focused on a particular question of journalistic values from "What is journalism?" to issues of diversity, impartiality, and competency in the newsroom, news as entertainment, online journalism, and coverage of local issues.

The Committee will issue a comprehensive report on the state of journalism in this country at the conclusion of the forums.

Kovach said he hopes that putting a public spotlight on the problems of journalism today will create momentum for change within the industry, changes that will ensure adherence to journalistic standards.

"We're trying to tease out what standards and values journalists today have and how those standards set journalism apart from talk shows and public relations and get that out to the public," Kovach said.

The forums are underwritten by the Pew Charitable Trusts. WGBH is cosponsoring this forum in memory of David Kuhn, a longtime WGBH producer, who died in 1993. Kuhn was committed to teaching the techniques and the ethics of good journalism. The forum will be part of a live audio Web-cast by WGBH. It will also be videotaped for future broadcast.

Two weeks after the forum, the Committee for Concerned Journalists Web page (www.journalism.org/concern) will carry a summary of the day.