API Hosting "Crisis" Summit Of Newspaper CEOs
Fitz: Take 50 top newspaper executives, lock them in a room for a day, and maybe they can figure out what the heck is going on with this industry.
That's what the American Press Institute (API) is going to try, anyway. API is hosting a one-day, closed-door summit to "discuss corporate renewal techniques" for the newspaper industry. Participants in the facilitated discussion are expected to come up with "concrete steps the industry can take to reverse its declines in revenue, profit, and shareholder value," according to its announcement.
API's calling the invitation-only event the “API Summit on Saving an Industry in Crisis.” It says it will gather 50 CEO-level execs at its Reston, Va., campus on Nov. 13. Among the speakers will be so-called turnaround CEO Steve Miller, who's certainly seen companies as troubled as the newspaper biz is now. He's done stints at Delphi, Chrysler, Bethlehem Steel and Aetna.
API says it will publish an executive summary and a full report on the conference afterwards.
While it's tempting to sniff that nothing good can come of this, I actually think this is a good thing. It's far better to address a crisis than to ignore it.
If API is smart, though, they'll also invite some highly-interested outsiders to participate as well. Many names on the attendee-list for Jeff Jarvis' recent CUNY summit on "New Business Models for News" would be a good place to start.
Posted by: Tim Windsor | November 06, 2008 at 06:51 PM
I'll indeed sniff -- hell, I'll even snort -- that nothing good will come of this for anyone except the American Press Institute.
It's not like throughout this decade these 50 top newspaper executives HAVEN'T been desperately been trying to figure out the solution. It's not like they haven't all been attending the same conferences together for years. Does anyone think that simply getting them together yet again, this time with a new moderator, will give them the key? (Moreover, is this yet another clue that the API's Newspaper Next 'solution' wasn't?)
Could it be possible that these 50 top newspaper executives -- the very people who've navigated their companies into this predicament and who have a huge vested interest in not admitting that they've been wrong despite their losing 66 to 95 percent or more of their companies' market value during the past five years (during which the Dow Jones Jndustrial Average has lost only 17 percent) -- are a very major part of the problem they're trying to solve? To paraphrase Einstein, "You cannot solve problems with the same people who created them."
However, this 'summit' of lack of visionaries is a great idea for the API's seminar revenues. I wonder what API will charge each top exec?
Posted by: crosbie | November 07, 2008 at 04:05 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:50 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:50 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:50 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:50 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:50 PM
First of all, API is gaining nothing as they are underwriting the cost for most of the attendees. Secondly, many of those in attendance are from organizations that are still growing revenues in this current downturn. Will any good come from it, hard to tell, but throwing earth-shaking ideas on the table might be a good start.
Posted by: John Newby | November 11, 2008 at 08:51 PM
I am at the API Summit, and am the only one live blogging, at http://cpetersia.wordpress.com
Good attendance, attention, and agreement that we have structural issues.
Nothing I blog will be attributed.
Twitter tag is #APIS
Posted by: Chuck Peters | November 13, 2008 at 09:21 AM