Kerry Northrup, the director of the Newsplex is one of our main speakers today. Note to Barb: get a copy of the video about the Newsroom of the future and the New roles in the newsroom where newsroom is shown as a "system." Ifra-world association for media publishing

• 2000 members, 70 countries, 350 USA members
• Centre for Adv. News Operations-resource for innovation in editorial strategy and news tech. Problems in the industry is not a national thing, but global. They run a program called "Leaders" for CEOs and management folks who come into news biz without background in journalism, because this is the challenge of corporate conglomeration. Specialization of news outlets (eg TV stations optimized for just TV, newspaper just optimized for print) means they need help and new paradigms for organizing for multiple media news operations. Tampa is the example of a new place that is attracting so many visitors they must limit them. Newsplex focus is on doing news, but not for a single output medium.
• Most news managers know the newsroom must change, but are asking "what are our options?" and the Newsplex is the proto or demo of the combos of new options. I was interested to hear him put "mobile" in with video, print, etc. as one of the big growth and change agents in news biz. Wireless and mobile will be the bigger than many expect.
Strategic issues for news organization
• News and info marketplace has radically changed. Now going niche, and becoming a service-based, info-based industry that aggregates small audiences, instead of a production industry for a mass audience. Northrup claims the FCC dereg would foster this move from mass media to aggregator.
• Convergent journalism reaches more people and is more powerful than single medium stories.
• Northrup says that Gil Thelen (Tampa Trib) attributes a 2% increase in ad revenues because they operate in a multiple media operation intead of mono-media operation.
• Newsrooms must change and be different than they have been. Print orgs must realize they need to do video--mindset needs to change.
• Diversity index in FCC decision--helps decide whether a station can own a newspaper, etc. Based on H and H index from Trade that is used to check for monopolies.