Top TV, print marketing and blogger experts today debated the question “has traditional Media Been Caught in the Web?” during a panel at the 2013 Israeli Presidential Conference.
Ms. Jane Eisner, Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Daily Forward, monitored the discussion, whose speakers included Phil Griffin, president of MSNBC, Richard Plepler, CEO of HBO, Ed Morissey, the lead blogger on HotAir, Aluf Benn, Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz newspaper, and Dr. Renana Peres, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Hebrew University.
“It’s about differentiation” said Pepler. “If you have something with good storytelling and with an original voice, you can monetize it... and original voice, like Girls, or Larry David with 5 million viewers, is just as important to us as our blockbusters, like Game of Thrones. This is despite the difference of viewership.”
Ed Morissey explained that the key to the new digital age is that the real revolution wasn’t the web, it was choice, a notion seconded by MSNBC’s Griffin agreed, explaining that this choice created a market to provide progressive, opinionated news rather than appearing neutral, and helped turn around MSNBC.
Dr. Peres of the Hebrew University attempted to answer the question of the relationship between new media and old media. ”You need traditional media to attract new consumers,” she explained, but you need new social media to retain them. So should traditional media feel threatened? I say no – it’s a wonderful opportunity.”
Facing Tomorrow 2013 takes place from June 18-20, 2013 at Jerusalem's International Convention Center. The conference is organized in partnership with Hebrew University.
