Newspaper & Mailroom

Vivian Schiller Crosses the Intersection of Media and Technology

Friday 06. February 2015 - In a 25-year career, Vivian Schiller has held senior management positions at some of the leading media companies in the United States: NBC News, National Public Radio, The New York Times and Twitter.

So it is wholly appropriate for her to address a joint session of the World News Media Congress, World Editors Forum and World Advertising Forum, the global summit meetings of the world’s newspapers and news publishers, to be held in Washington, D.C. from 1 to 3 June next.
Ms Schiller, who will speak in a session dedicated to the impact of technology on journalism, served most recently as Global Chair of News at Twitter. Before that, she was Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer for NBC News. Her earlier positions included President and CEO of National Public Radio, and Senior Vice President and General Manager of NYTimes.com.
More than 1,000 publishers, CEOs, managing directors, chief editors and other senior newspaper and news media executives from 80 nations are expected in Washington for the 66th World News Media Congress, the 22nd World Editors Forum and the 25th World Advertising Forum, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in cooperation with the Newspaper Association of America.
“The lineup of diverse speakers for the World Newspaper Congress in Washington, D.C. shows why this will be such a unique and important event,” said Caroline Little, President and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America. “It will provide the opportunity for American newspaper media executives to meet and discuss strategies with leaders from around the world. These global speakers showcase the power of newspaper media worldwide and how we can work together to further our industry’s positive momentum.”
So how does Ms Schiller see the future of news?
“The economy is really strong and there are a lot of jobs out there,” she recently said in a speech to the Daily News Innovation Lab’s Conversations series in New York. “There are a lot of people competing for talent.”
That optimism might come as a surprise, but she tempered it with a warning about how the business model for news is developing. She warned of the potential dangers of the growing reliance on Google, Twitter and Facebook for traffic, at a cost of ceding the audience relationship to these social media platforms.
“The tension is getting greater and greater between the control over the audience relationship, data about the audience and revenue,” said Ms Schiller. “There may come a point when the platforms push too far and the publishers say ‘enough.’ I don’t know we are there yet, but we may be getting close in certain places.”
Ms Schiller is just one of speakers on the programme, representing news media from four continents. Others include:
– Raju Narisetti, Senior Vice President & Deputy Head of Strategy for News Corp, the world’s largest publisher including The Wall Street Journal, Times of London and The Australian. Mr Narisetti has a strong record of creating, rethinking and managing major news organisations on three continents (Asia, Europe and North America) through a mix of print, digital and mobile content, products and partnerships,
– Emily Bell, Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose speech to the Reuters Institute last year was nothing less than the year’s most definitive statement on the future of journalism;
– Eric Harris, Executive Vice President for Business Operations of Buzzfeed, who has been a key figure in developing its business model, new ventures, and growing the site’s relationships with publishers and brands;
– Arunabh Das Sharma, President of the Times Group in India and an expert in handling business strategies across a range of markets and platforms. Mr Sharma has worked in both mature and emerging market environments in India, China and the US and will share his experiences at the Congress.
– Troy Young, President of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, who oversees the digital content, technology, operations, product and business development strategies for 18 brand websites such as Cosmopolitan, Popular Mechanics, ELLE, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar and Seventeen, which attract more than 100 million unique visitors and 740 million page views monthly.
– Rita Chinyoka, Publisher and CEO of Alpha Media Holdings, the largest independent newspaper group in Zimbabwe which prints, markets and distributes four publications on various platforms including print, online and mobile. In a country where mobile is emerging as the preferred news medium, the company has embarked on a “mobile first” digital strategy that has resulted in two cutting edge digital products for mobile devices.
– Plus many more
As always, the events are accompanied by an array of social events, gala dinners and lunches — including an opening cocktail at the Newseum — and are considered to be the premier opportunity to meet colleagues from around the world.