One overwhelming issue that emerged out of the We Media event was the continuing divide between the mainstream media and the blogging community.
The two are talking to each other, but all too often this conversation descends into a war of words. Both sides have a tendency to adopt a defensive position when challenged, and this in turn leads to a dialogue of the deaf.
This sort of approach leads nowhere.
It's been a couple of long days, with a lot of ideas flying around the room, but the We Media global forum is coming to an end.
And it is ending with an appeal for ideas to change the world for the better. Yes, it sounds like a noble intention, but this is the nature of meetings like this.
As the We Media comes to an end, the discussions have got round to the issue that is bothering most media organisations - how can we make money in this new digital world?
Carolyn McCall of highlighted the challenge facing companies like hers. Newspaper rely on advertising and classifieds. But readers are moving online and using services like Craigslist and expect to use these services for free.
The short answer is that no one has the answer, but there were a few possibilities.
Today has been a very different conference to the event hosted by the 大象传媒 on Wednesday. Part of this is because of the different venue.
Mostly it is because we are hearing from voices from Asia, the sub-continent, the Middle East and Africa. It contrasts to yesterday when it was mostly the head honchos from big media speaking.
The message coming through is that the media around the world is maturing and reporting on its backyard on its own terms.
Wilfred Kiboro of the in Kenya didn't mince his words.
"International media outlets do a great disservice to Africa by stereotyping Africa," he said. "We are not in the stone age."
We're into big idea territory with a live satellite link-up with Jeffrey Sachs, director of the , in New York.
After some hiccups in getting the connection up and running, Sachs laid out his vision - ending extreme poverty, which he believes we can do by 2025.
To do this, he is talking about giving villages in Africa the tools to help farmers. This can be as simple as providing fertilisers. With a little bit of help, he said, you can triple food production, tackle malaria and provide clean drinking water.
The discussions on the media in the Middle East is highlighting the gulf between the news organisations in the West and those in the Arab world.
Rami Khouri of the newspaper set the tone. He argued there is a misperception in the West that the Arab media incites anti-western feelings. His position is that the media reflects the views and concerns of its audience.
Before the conference broke up for a rather good lunch, one theme was emerging from the contributions from China and India.
What is becoming apparent is how the media in these countries is starting from a very different point to the West. The media doesn't have a legacy issue to do with, which is another way of saying that it is young and fresh.
Much of the talk about new media and Web 2.0 by its very nature focuses on the internet. But as is becoming apparent in the We Media discussions, we should not overlook the power of the mobile phone,.
This is especially true in developing countries, where many do not have access to a PC, but do have a mobile. One suggestion during the panel discussion on India has been that the country may leap-frog the PC and go straight to mobiles.
One of the issues that many in the media business have been debating is the success of OhMyNews in South Korea.
The pioneering South Korean "citizen journalism" website has some 33,000 citizen reporters, though it still uses professional editors too.
The session on China threw up a real gulf between the view of the internet from inside China and those developing new services, and how the situation is portrayed in the Western media.
On a satellite link-up from Hong Kong, Rudy Chan from insisted that, aside from a few specific areas, the internet has been by and large free, adding that people could do pretty much what they wanted on it.
So while questions from the mainly Western delegates were about press freedom and net censorship, the voices from the country itself told a very different story.
The conference has been opened up to the world, starting off with a focus on Asia and in particular China.
While much of the coverage in the Western media is about political dissidents using the web to spread their message, it sounds like most Chinese people are more interested in entertainment than politics.
David Schlesinger from Reuters said that those participating online are talking about the movies they like, their villages or their sex lives, rather than politics.
Kicking off the We Media conference, raised an interesting point about participation in the political process.
He compared how people are embracing blogs, photo-sharing sites and other web technologies as a way of making themselves heard, while at the same time, disengaging with formal politics.
This is particularly salient today, as . Usually local elections are marked by a fairly low turnout.
As Glocer says: "Giving everyone their own private electronic printing press gives them a way to express themselves.
"People seem to get more value from this than going to the polling place and participate."
The We Media delegates are filing their way to London's Docklands for day two of the conference at Reuters.
The place has a very different feel to the 大象传媒. While yesterday was at a studio usually home to Top of the Pops, today is in a swish boardroom, with rows and rows of chairs.
Live streaming of the forum will start from 0800 GMT / 0900 BST, so you will be able see and hear what the people think about the future of the media and news.
End of a long day with a lot of talk about the future of the media, the question of trust and the role of bloggers.
On Thursday it all starts up again, this time at headquarters in London's Docklands. It promises to be a very different day, with plans to hook up via satellite to reporters and bloggers around the world.
Looking at the , there seems to be less of an emphasis on big media and more on those nipping at their ankles.
The other big issue up for grabs is money. As they say talk is cheap. What many in the news business want to hear is how to make money from this brave new world of blogs, podcasts and citizen journalism.
If you want to get a taste of participatory media, have a listen to World Have Your Say. The 大象传媒 programme is coming live from the We Media conference. They are trying to get a sense of what people across the world make of the way the media is changing. People can phone in or e-mail and text comments.
As the programme says on its blog; "If you're tired of shouting at your radio, leave a comment here to have your say."
Update: The programme is now off-air but you can listen again on its blog.
The discussion on citizen journalism at the We Media forum has stirred up opinions among some of the bloggers here. Throughout the discussion, there was a real sense of them and us. In this case, the them are bloggers and the us are the mainstream media.
Neha Viswanathan, part of the Global Voices network, has captured this defensiveness . For her, it is not an us vs them.
As she writes: "It’s sad if journalism as a profession feels threatened by citizen journalism. But if it makes them clean up their act - Oh! Why not? It is unfortunate that people who support citizen journalism have to feel so defensive in a forum that was supposed to engage the two camps. I feel like they’ve divided them up even further."
There is no denying that big media organisations are still uneasy with the idea of blogs. As my friend Kevin Anderson explains "I get the feeling that some of us in large media organisations want citizen journalists’ content but they don’t want the messiness of the blogosphere. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. It’s messy out there."
However there seem to be some people who "get" the We Media idea.
This is what the 大象传媒's director of global news Richard Sambrook "We easily get trapped in either/or mindset: Mainstream vs bloggers. Get over it. We live in a remixed mash-up world."
This is the way of the world now and there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle.
There has been much talk about citizen journalism and ways of people telling their own stories.
It is a phenomenon that mainstream media is still grappling with. They realise this is something that can add to our understanding of the world, but are unsure about its place.
At this afternoon’s session on citizen journalism, the main issue for the representatives of big media seemed to be about truth and accuracy.
George Brock of said they loved to hear people’s stories. But he qualified this, saying it had to be newsworthy and true. At the end of the day, people want reliability and accuracy, he argued.
The message was echoed by the 大象传媒’s director of news Helen Boaden. She made an interesting point about the veracity of witness accounts.
“Witness accounts do not necessary give you an objective factual picture. They give you the truth as I see it,” she said.
“The role of journalism is to sift facts and give you a truthful and factual picture.”
All this talk of accuracy and truth provoked a strident response from an audience member, Leonard Witt from , who accused the panel of talking as if the media had a lock on the truth.
This exchange highlights the divide between news professionals and citizen journalists. The most insightful comments came from someone who became well-known as a blogger after the 7 July bombings in London.
was caught up in the Tube bomb attacks and started blogging about her experience. It was picked up by the 大象传媒 and her diary was published on .
She said that her blogging had been driven by an overwhelming desire to tell her story. Ironically, given that she was the amateur journalist on the panel, she gave the best description of citizen journalism.
For her, it is “telling stories of the people, for the people, by the people.” This is the best definition of citizen journalism I have heard in a long time.
In a world where we are bombarded with instant news, when do you have the time to think? This is the challenge to the media thrown out by actor and activist at the We Media forum.
Dreyfuss has shed his Hollywood mantle and is now arguing for the need for reason, debate and logic. He spoke about what he called “instantaneous knowledge” and the loss of rumination, patience and simply thinking things through.
He fears that the trend towards 24/7 news is being accelerated by technology and made a plea to the media in the room.
“I applaud the technology that leads us all here,” he said. “But I don’t applaud the self-imposed blindness when we overlook the potential damage this technology can do.
“And this is something everyone in broadcasting should start thinking about. The technology is demanding that we rethink how to think.
“This technology can lead us to fatal conclusions without the time to change our minds.”
For Dreyfuss, this conclusion is one based on hatred, ignorance and hysteria.
There is no doubt that we live in a very different news world now, with 24-hour news channels, constantly updated news websites and million of blogs. It is just the way of the world now.
But Dreyfuss is raising an important point. While we may have the world’s knowledge at our fingertips, do we have the time to process what we learn?
Where is the time to apply reason and logic, and question what we watch and read?
The day has broken up for lunch and between the canapes and desserts, people are digesting the morning's discussions.
The feeling seems to be that we have heard a lot from big media. It has been a morning of chiefs talking about the future of the media, the need to change, to embrace the audience. But as one delegate told me, it was all rather top down, with little effort to involve people working at the grassroots.
The conference does feel like an exclusive gathering of big media and in some ways this is inevitable. But to be fair, the organisers are trying to involve others through blogs, chats and live streaming. And the plan is to bring more diverse perspectives in the afternoon sessions.
If you want to see more of the event, the 大象传媒 has .
Amid all the discussions of trust in the media, the rise of blogs and the internet, a senior UN official has struck a note of caution.
, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General, told the assembled media representatives, bloggers and developers at the We Media conference that they have forgotten about one key aspect - relevance. Mr Desai is Indian and said that he has access to dozens of news sources when he is in Delhi. But he says he prefers to watch local Indian news channels.
Why? Because their coverage is far more relevant to his interests. And this is a major challenge for the big media players. If the audience for news is changing, if their interests are changing, then what we call news needs to change.
After all, if TV channels or newspapers are not covering things that you care about, it is very easy now to find someone who is.
This theme of relevant news was picked up by a panel discussion of big hitters of the media industry, including 大象传媒 boss Mark Thompson. One issue they were pressed on was the relationship between the mainstream media and audiences in the developing world. In particular, does the big media dictate the agenda or are there ways people in the developing world can make their views heard.
Mark Thompson cited the 大象传媒 World Service as an example of media which was close to it audience and listening to its listeners. The challenge now was to generalise that across the 大象传媒.
This touches on one of the key themes of the conference - the idea of a participatory media. But a note of realism was struck by others on the panel. Google's highlighted that despite growing internet penetration in developing countries, there were still parts of the world where the media is able to dictate what you read.
Timothy Balding from the took this further. He said what we should be talking about is ways of strengthening the media in developing countries. And for this to happen, we need a Marshall Plan for the media, he argued. That idea, however, sounds much like the West imposing its view of the media on developing countries.
The sparked off the first session of the We Media forum. David Schlesinger from Reuters made the point that we should not worry so much about how people get news, but instead about what kind of news they are getting. For him, it is not about the medium, but the message. And according to David, what people are interested in are witness accounts, facts and opinion.
Faced with the plethora of information now available, how do you sort through this? According to panellist Nihal Arthanayake, a 大象传媒 DJ, we all need a comfort blanket. He says: "We have a blizzard of information coming to us and we need some place we can go to for the news, to get that idea of fact and truth without the whiff of an agenda."
The idea of a comfort blanket does sound appealing. But if you are going to wrap yourself up in this news duvet, you need to be sure you trust it. For Nihal, the comfort blanket is 大象传媒 News. What is your comfort blanket?
The We Media conference has just kicked off. We're all backed into the Top of the Pops studio at 大象传媒 TV Centre in west London. The location seems appropriate, given that one of the big issues facing the media is how to reach a younger generation who is moving away from traditional sources.
The day's events will be blogged here and also by , one of the co-sponsors of the event.
Dale Peskin of The Media Center has set the tone from the start, telling us all that "no one is as smart as everyone". So if you have a question or comment, let us know so that we can ask here at the conference.
The results of a global poll commissioned by the 大象传媒 and Reuters into . The top line figure is that generally people trust the media more than governments.
But the more interesting findings are in some of the detailed figures of the sources people of different ages use. What emerges is a picture of a younger generation who are turning to the internet and alternative news sources to create their image of the world. I've written on this issue.
For those of us working in the online world, this is something we have seen happening for a while. There seems to be an inexorable shift from traditional sources like newspapers and evening TV news bulletins towards online sources. This doesn't mean that TV and newspapers are dead. But they face a big challenge in adapting to the new media world.
As from Wednesday morning, I'll be in one of the big studios at 大象传媒 TV Centre in west London with some 300 others for the first day of the We Media conference. Day two takes place at the other end of London, at Reuters headquarters in the Docklands.
Who are the 300 people attending the event? Organisers The Media Center "thinkers, innovators, investors, executives and activists seeking to tap the potential of digital networks connecting people everywhere".
Among them will be 大象传媒 director general Mark Thompson, Reuters CEO Tom Glocer and Guardian newspapers CEO Carolyn McCall. In other words, quite a few representatives from big media, trying to get a grip on a new digital era when anyone can create and distribute their own content globally online.
This is the second time this event has been held. The theme this year is the power of trust. In some ways it reflects the concern of the big media giants today, as blogs hold them to account and snip at their ankles.
You can expect plenty of comment and discussion about the event on blogs, including this one. But you will also be able to make up your own mind about what is being said, as we will be providing live streaming video of the debate. If you disagree with what someone says, why not start up your own blog?
You could also take part in the 大象传媒's World Have Your Say which will be broadcasting live from the conference.
If you want me to raise a particular point or ask a question, let me know in the comments section. I'll try to make your voice heard.
The image used for the branding of tomorrow's in London has stirred up a debate in the blogosphere. We did not use the image on this blog as it did not fit our house style, but you can find it on the run by organisers The Media Center, a US think tank.
The image is of an Arab woman holding up an ink-stained finger. On his Salam Adil, an Iraqi living in London, questions the use of the photo. In a thoughtful analysis he decontructs the image, asking if the photograph was staged and questioning its authenticity.
Whether or not he is right, it highlights how delicate the issue of trust is. As he concludes: "If you can't trust this image - how can you trust the media?"
Ahead of this week's We Media conference in London, the 大象传媒's Director of Global News, Richard Sambrook, has written an article describing
As he writes: "The comparison isn't quite as ridiculous as it may appear. Forty years ago, music was leading a social revolution, disrupting the establishment and empowering a new generation."
He goes on to say: "Today's web technology and social media, known as Web 2.0, or the second wave of the internet, are leading a similar challenge and the long-term effects are likely to be greater."
As someone who has been working in online news for nine years, I am somewhat of an internet evangelist. I believe that we have only just starting to feel the impact of networking technologies and no one really knows where this will take us.
The history of technology shows how the intended use of new inventions is often subverted by the people using them. In the early days of the telephone, the companies behind the technology saw it as a way of sending music into homes, or relaying the latest news. They never foresaw that people might want to use the telephone for something as basic as simply talking to each other.
It does make me wonder how the internet will develop in the future and whether what we consider now as revolutionary will fall by the wayside in the years to come.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the 大象传媒 News website asking people for their views on the role that the media plays in fostering trust in an increasingly connected society. With about 32,000 entries so far, some interesting results are coming through.
Unsurprisingly given the poll is on a website, a third say they trust news websites the most. Trailing in second place are newspapers at 19%.
But the most remarkable result is that 18% say they trust blogs the most. Why do people turn to blogs? According to the e-survey, most use them as an alternative source of news and about half of readers trust them to some extent.
Or course, this is a far from scientific poll. And the results are biased by the very fact that it is an online survey. Despite these reservations, it does offer an insight into the media habits of visitors to news websites.
The 大象传媒 is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
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