Silverdocs: In the Year 2525
The “Future of Public Media” panel was described as a “fun-filled, role-playing simulation that asks a cast of experts to step out of 2009 and project themselves into the public media of the future.” Those assembled experts, or “rapporteurs,” were:
• Joaquin Alvarado, senior VP for diversity and innovation at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
• Pat Aufderheide, director of AU’s School of Communications
• Scott Kirsner, CinemaTech blogger and author of Fans, Friends, and Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Careeer in the Digital Age (Disclosure: don’t know him, but he’s linked to my blog in the past)
• Orlando Bagwell, director Media, Arts and Culture, the Ford Foundation
• John Boland, chief content officer, PBS
• Andy Carvin, social media strategist, NPR
• Doug Craig, senior VP home entertainment, Discovery Communications
• Paco de Onis, producer Skylight Pictures
• Jacquie Jones, executive director National Black Programming Consortium
• Alyce Myatt, executive director Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media
• Marita Rivera, VP and GM, Radio and Television, WGBH
Moderator Alvarado opened the show with the clever quip, “We’ve been waiting for the future for so long. Why is it so lame?” Which unfortunately set the theme. The event was clever, well-produced, and the goal of creating dialog, and possibly understanding, out of the current raging chaos is laudable. But the notions the rapporteurs came up with were mostly vague, and thus useless. Yes, I did walk in wanting to know what the future will be. The panel was titled “The Future of Public Media.”
Of course, if anyone in the room actually could predict the future, they wouldn’t be sharing that info with strangers — they’d be stocking up on venture capital or weapons. So no disrespect, but the exercise smacked of over-thinking by festival organizers looking for “fun-filled” programming, and the mood was a bit too self-congratulatory for my taste.
Discovery’s Craig and CPB’s Boland couldn’t see much outside their boxes, Craig suggesting that in the future, “television is still the predominant media.” Hey, why think yourself out of a job? Likewise, Kirsner didn’t stray very far from the topics he covers on his blog and in his latest book, which he’s been promoting a lot lately. (And which I bought and enjoyed, but which is an insightful assessment of the current moment and not necessarily a road map to tomorrowland.)
Nonetheless, here’s a selection of the group’s predictions, observations, and quips. Pick the ones you want to come true and bet heavily:
- The future is only getting worse.
- Twitter and Google will merge.
- Boxee will be a success
- “Donate Now” buttons will be ubiquitous (Ahem — I have one.)
- After noting all of the tech and social-media advances — and the economic disruption they’ve caused — Alvarado asked, “How do we shut all this innovation down?” The assessment was “You do have to let the crazies in.”
- Lots of talk of combining citizen and professional journalism
- Micro-payments are go
- The landscape will be more competitive
- NPR will produce iPhone apps and indulge citizen journalism (This may be true now; hard to tell)
- Directors are becoming ringmasters
- The Ford Foundation probably has more money than the Ford Motor Company
- Younger philanthropists are changing the game
- Local ethnic media will have their act together
- Smartphones will be ubiquitous, even in the third world
- No more tote bags
- More effort must be spent in marketing than in production
- Long-awaited end of television as we know it.
- We’re all storytellers
- Games are the way people interact with stories
