| Article Index |
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| Chapter 5: The Mission |
| The Washington Post |
| CNN |
| Atlanta Journal-Constitution |
| Examiner.com |
| BBC Online |
| The Guardian |
| The Daily Telegraph |
| Lancashire Evening Post |
| All Pages |
In May, 2008, immediately after The Alliance’s first Future of Journalism summit in Sydney, The Alliance sent a group of five senior staff and journalists to visit US and Western European newsrooms and to discuss the scale and pace of change with journalists and senior executives. The group spoke with academics and new media trail-blazers about experimental and citizen journalism, data mining and blogging. The mission asked: What is the impact of these changes on the way journalists work, what is the impact on the work journalists produce, and, what is the impact on the structure of the industry?
The team was: Matt Brown, ABC Melbourne Louise Connor, Alliance Victorian secretary Terry O’Connor, Courier-Mail Online, Queensland secretary Ruth Pollard, SMH, Alliance federal president Christopher Warren, Alliance federal secretary
They visited newspapers, online newspapers, broadcasters, non-profit organisations, academics, agencies, unions and others. They visited Los Angeles, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, Washington, New York and Toronto. They also visited the United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands. The mission found an industry and a craft deeply ill at ease with the challenges ahead. Some journalists are embracing opportunities for improving communications. Many are not. All companies are seeking to engage online but few are successfully – financially, culturally or structurally – adapting to a digital world.
