Public will add depth to ‘lively’ media conference

Public will add depth to ‘lively’ media conference

Members of the public are being encouraged to attend an international conference on the future of the news media in Auckland next month.

Organisers say the unusual move of including public sessions in the otherwise academic conference reflects the importance of the subject matter.

Dubbed Journalism Downunder – the future of the media in the digital age, the conference will bring together journalism educators from Australasia and the South Pacific, members of the New Zealand media and now local consumers of the media.

The public will be invited to attend morning sessions of the three-day conference when keynote speakers and panellists will discuss the future of the press, television and radio news in the digital age.

Convenor Allison Oosterman says the event, far from being a dry exchange between academics, should be “a lively, thought-provoking affair made all the better by input from academic commentators, the media industry itself and its audience”.

“Newsrooms around the world are shrinking as the media comes under pressure from a mix of changing technologies and economic imperatives. This is a time of huge change,” she said.

“Ultimately, of course, the public is affected by the fundamental shifts the media is undergoing and we want them to be able to come and hear what the experts think.”

City University’s Professor Roy Greenslade, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, author and leading international commentator on the media, will lead a line-up of expert speakers at the morning sessions.

Other key speakers will include Maori TV’s head of news, Te Anga Nathan, and Radio New Zealand chief Peter Cavanagh.

TVNZ head of news Bill Ralston, new media commentator Russell Brown, New Zealand Herald editor Tim Murphy and Sunday Star-Times editor Cate Brett are other media luminaries who will take part in the panel discussions.

The conference, to be held at the Rendezvous Hotel (previously the Carlton Hotel) from December 4 to 7, will see the future of the press discussed on day one, television news on day two and radio news on day three.

Members of the public can attend each day’s two-hour keynote address and morning panel discussion for $25. They can register on the conference website or on the day.

The conference is being organised by AUT University’s School of Communication Studies.

Sponsors include TVNZ, the New Zealand Herald, the Sunday Star-Times, the National Business Review, Printsprint, AUT University’s School of Communications, the University of Canterbury and the Journalists Training Organisation.

More details are on the conference website: http://artsweb.aut.ac.nz/journalism_conference/index.htm

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