Online Journalism Symposium

The business models required to keep journalism afloat are not as complex as they seem.

Ken Riddick, Vice President of digital media for Hearst Newspapers spoke about the need for creative solutions to the problems facing newspapers and media companies.

“We’ve all seen the trend lines about declining circulation and readership, and we need to realize we are done being a mass medium and are now an aggregator,” Riddick said. “Now that even the online audience has stopped growing, we’re going to have earn everything we can.”

Riddick said the important thing to focus on is the importance of the Web and the increasing revenues gained online.

“We have to cut the umbilical cord and drive the online revenues,” Riddick said. “I’ll say that the opportunity is huge and our challenge is huge.”