On December 1st and 2nd, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is holding “Workshops and Roundtables: From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?“ In the public notice they have a long list of questions that they propose should be discussed.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to gather some of my thoughts, and hopefully, reactions from others about these questions. With that, I am providing the list of questions along with some of my initial reactions. It may take me a while to get through all the questions, so I’m posting the first group now, and I’ll try to post more over the coming days.

Changes Driven by Technology

How is the Internet changing the way consumers access news?

First, and foremost, more and more news ‘consumers’ are changing their relationship to the news. We are thinking of ourselves less as consumers, if we ever thought of ourselves that way in the first place, and are now thinking of ourselves as ‘participants’. We the people make the news. We are the news. Reporting about the news should be a conversation with the participants and not a product to be consumed no differently than pork chops cut off of pigs in lipstick.

With that, news participants are being given much more choice and we will choose those venues that best cater to our needs. For the serious news junkies, this is great. We are able to get a wider array of viewpoints and much more information. For people that want news that simply reinforces there viewpoints, they will be more pleased with their options, but they may end up less informed, or even more and more believing things that are not true.

If anything, this points to an increased importance of media education.

What further changes are forecast?

To me, the interesting forecasts are about how news will become more instantaneous, delivered via mobile devices, and perhaps more immediately connected to my preferences, location and other information.

Yet the more interesting question is about what is not yet forecast. What sort of impact will the next disruptive technology have on the media ecosphere? Given the shambles that the current media ecosphere is in, this could be a big issue.

What are the consequences of those changes for consumers and for news organizations?

Actually, in part as noted above, I’m not especially concerned about news consumers or news organizations. The question that really needs to be considered are the consequences of these changes to the citizens of our country and to the very nature of democracy.

There is the great quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson, "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will." If the ability of the citizenry to be informed gets impeded by changes to the way news is gathered, analyzed and distributed, then this is a significant threat to our country.

How is the Internet changing advertising expenditures?

Advertising has been moving online and particularly away from print. People often talk about this in terms of classified advertisements and sites like Craigslist. However, I believe we are seeing this happening more with corporate and other forms of advertising as well. One result is that advertising needs to be much more measurable. Now, the concern is not how many subscribers a paper has, but how many people actually look at, or even interact with a specific advertisement.

Advertisements, like the news itself, need to become much more interactive. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of advertising moving from traditional media to new media is the advertisements that the Obama campaign put in video games.

Yet there is another important unstated aspect to this question. The real question is, how should journalism be paid for? Should it be left to volunteers? Should it be paid for by advertising? Should it be paid for by subscriptions? Should it be paid for by the government? Should it be paid for by donations? All of these funding mechanisms need to be carefully considered.

What further changes are forecast?

Everyone talks about new types of behavioral and targeted advertising, but like I said above, the real interesting question is about the changes not forecast, the next disruptors and how the industry will respond.

For which types of advertising will news organizations likely remain preferred venues?

Successful advertising campaigns are typically ones where the readers, viewers, or participants have an interest in the products being advertised. News about politics is most likely to remain a preferred venue for political advertisements. News about local events is most likely to remain a preferred venue for advertisements for local businesses.

What is the likely role of targeted advertising in the future, both by news organizations and other entities?

The more targeted the advertising, the higher the likely revenue. I would expect to see more and more targeted advertising in the future. Local newspapers may find that making targeted online advertising more accessible may help considerably with their revenue streams.