MediaFlect

So there’s a move by the French government to prop up newspapers, it seems, rather than let them go their natural way. Gotta love government intervention — if you’re scared of change or losing your job. Learned about this today at the IFRA-sponsored tour for French journalistic managers (newspaper, wire service, magazine) from editorial and tech sides. Told ‘em what I see as the way to increase acceptance in their main organizations for the organization and make it a win-win: In a nutshell, it’s make sure Internet has a seat at the table, every table, and create both editorial and revenue opportunities.

Came back a couple hours later to watch Jeff Jarvis lay it on pretty thick in on the wonders of blogging — audience participation is good and can be harnessed editorially and commercially, the current business model is broken and blogs may be the answer, sharing and openness is in, informational/organization walls and obliqueness are out. Made some provocative comments about how he left AdvanceNet because he preferred to go out on his own than fight the Newhouse family’s newspapers to change internally.

Was amazed that none of about 15 French journalistic managers had heard of Technorati, or knew how easy it was to do a blog (I set one up and blogged the session for a minute just to show how easy it was, and got a round of applause (I think that’s why they clapped when I stood up to leave )), and I’m not sure they understood “RSS” — many were good enough at English that I don’t think it was a language problem.

But Jeff also repeated a lot of things that seem to be part of the “zeitgeist” now, and unlike common sense, common wisdom is quite common — and ends up being conventional, which is where I see “Danger Danger, Warning Warning” (Lost in Space reference). More to come …