I got the chance this morning to have another one-on-one conversation with David Schlesinger, the Editor-in-Chief of Reuters. And last night I was worried: a conversation between a social media editor who just has one foot in the door of journalism for one month and a half, and an experienced and established journalist and editor who leads a 3000-people newsroom, hmmm, what should I talk about?
So I decided to crowdsource. Around 9pm the evening before, I posted on my Sina microblog, asking: I am to meet the Editor-in-Chief of Reuters tomorrow morning, do you have any questions for him?
Though I have 600+ followers there, I didn’t expect much feedback. However, by midnight when I got home, there were 10 questions ready. I picked some of them, and took them to David, and it became a pretty interesting conversation. Below you can find the answers – not direct quotes, but based on my notes and memories.
1) Why Reuters’ U.S. site is much more comfortable than its sites for other countries? （为什么路透社的美国站比其他站舒服那么多？）
David: We are doing it step by step. We renovated the U.S. site first, and followed by U.K. site. We’ll change the others in the future.
2) How is Reuters doing on merger and acquisition and any positive trends in the industry? (路透社如何做媒体融合？业内看好的趋势是什么？)
David: It is a difficult yet exiting time for journalism. The key is innovation. We value the technology that provides us different ways to present journalism. For example, we bought OpenCalais from an Israel company.
3) What is your view on news charging? Do you think that is against people’s right to access information freely? (怎么看待新闻收费？是否有悖于信息公开和公民的知情权？)
David: We need to pay the journalists. Reuters is selling professional news/information to professionals in a professional way. We do it partly by advertisement and partly by monthly subscription fees to our products, such as the Reuters Insider. And we are moving towards a more integrated model. I don’t think that is against people’s right to information. Monetization of journalism is necessary.
4) What do you think the rise of iPad and decline of print will influence the way that people consume information in the future?(怎么看待iPad的上升和纸媒的衰落？对未来人们摄取信息的方式会有怎样的影响？)
David: Personally I no longer subscribe to any prints anymore. I do all my readings on my iPad. Every morning I read on my iPad on my way to work, and when I arrive office, I’m done. That’s it. Mobile is the future.
5) How does Reuters deal with photos of corpse esp. in disaster reporting? (路透如何处理新闻中死者的照片，尤其是在涉及死亡的灾难报道中)
David: We need to be sensitive to people while attracting readers. We are never intrusive. But it is a grey area and we take ethics carefully.
6) What is your view on Chinese students’ anti-Japanese protests recently? (怎么看待今日中国学生的游行活动？)
David: While doing this kind of news, we need to be very sensitive to history. We keep objective, balancing the story with different views, instead of taking sides.
and the remaining 4 questions are..?