On John Kerry’s (D-MA) Future of Journalism hearing to be held today (Wednesday) at 2:30PM. The witness list includes one watchdog, two Internet services and three newspapers. Broadcasters and cable channels are not in the mix.
The hearing will be under Kerry’s gavel as chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, and adjunct of the Commerce Committee. It will kick off with a guest appearance from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MA).
The panelists include:
* Marissa Mayer, Vice President, Google Inc.
* Albert Ibarguen, President, The Knight Foundation
* David Simon, Former reporter, The Baltimore Sun
* Steve Coll, Journalist, Former Managing Editor of the Washington Post
* James Moroney, Chief Executive Officer, The Dallas Morning News
* Arianna Huffington, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, The Huffington Post
RBR/TVBR observation: Sometimes it’s a good thing to be left out of a hearing, especially when it veers towards fishing expedition or worse, witch hunt territory. In this case, market forces which will be difficult for Congress to do anything about are damaging the journalism business model. Since Congress will be relatively helpless, other than by curing the general economic woes currently afflicting all business categories, we’d characterize this as an exercise in navel-gazing. It wouldn’t be bad to have broadcast representation, but then on the other hand, it probably isn’t any big deal, either way.
