Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering to Host Media Summit about Shift to Niche News

September 30, 2010

Contact: Chriss Swaney
Carnegie Mellon University
412.268.5776

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering will host a panel of multimedia experts about the rise of niche news and the increased demand to reach mobile readers from noon to 1 p.m., Monday, Oct. 4 in the Singleton Room of Roberts Engineering Hall.

           
Ted Selker, associate director of the CyLab Mobility Research Center at Carnegie Mellon's campus at Silicon Valley, will moderate a distinguished panel of national and regional media as news outlets grapple with what to put behind online paywalls.

           
"We need to be asking whether the news business will become bigger or smaller and whether news organizations will become better at bringing perspective and facts to the public," Selker said. "Clearly, new ways of packaging news and delivering it to a more sophisticated and mobile audience is the goal. And our panel of experts will help us understand these significant changes."

           
Nomad Editions magazine editor and panel participant John Benditt is leading the charge for catering to mobile readers. His magazine, created by a New York startup of the same name, will feature the work of freelance journalists with expertise in a specific area, like surfing or movies. Every Friday, starting in October, subscribers will receive through a mobile application what amounts to a mini-magazine, focused on their area of interest. Each edition is expected to take 20 to 30 minutes to read.

          
Industry analysts report that the technology that powers also is new. Unlike other mobile applications that restrict content to a specific device or application, users of Nomad Editions will see the same content using the same Web address on their iPhone or on their desktop. 

           
Each panel member will have two to three minutes to discuss industry issues and then the session will be opened to the audience for questions. In addition to Benditt, the other four panel members include: Ivan Oransky, executive editor of health for Thomson Reuters; Allan Dodds Frank, a contributor to The Daily Beast and past president of the Overseas Press Club; Deborah Acklin, president and CEO of WQED multimedia; and Kathleen Knauer, executive producer of The Allegheny Front.

           
The 2010 Media Summit is an ongoing program developed by the College of Engineering to educate students and faculty about the changing nature of news and how to better interact with editors and reporters from print, online and broadcast mediums.