How to fix the model-Digital Editor's Network

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results," according to that well known quote from Albert Enstein.

Maybe that is where we are with the current discussions on how to repair the broken media business model.

That was the conclusion drawn from yesterday's events in Preston at the Digital Editor's Network and the Journalism leaders Forum that followed it

At the former,Francois Nel summarised his research into how the media are adapting to the digital business model and his conclusion was not very well.

His main concern was that that there has been little innovation on the business side as opposed to the content side.Whilst there had been a rush to increase the range and medium on the digital side,video,interactivity,podcasts etc,the perennial problems of how to make them pay had not been addressed.

The old model of selling advertising around content to a mass audience has long since been banished yet the business side has yet to comprehend this shift.advertising and we still believe that this is how it must operate.

As Francois concluded,

Making more content and assuming that more inventory meant more sales was simply not the case.

Whether the future is hyperlocal is yet to be concluded.We are after all at the early stages of this experiment.The Guardian's Sarah Hartley,the person behind the launch of the papers beat blogging exercise told the audience of a rise of the hyperlocal

New tools are giving more opportunity to the population to publish and this combined with the problems in the local press are creating opportunities for the passionate to explore what is going on in their neck of the woods.

The future she sees will no longer see control by a single newspaper but instead by an eco system made up of many players with varying motives.

It is inevitable that the big players will attempt to jump on the hyper local trend and Tom Johnson head of training at the Press Association unveiled a model for Public Service reporting that the organisation is looking to trial next year.

They are looking to set up three pilot schemes to report and make accountable public sector organisations,such as councils,education and health authorities.

Research has shown that over a 10 year period,for mainly resource reasons editors of local newspapers feel that they no longer scrutinise the goings on of local politics.

The gap has been filled by the local council propaganda sheet which whilst produces a lot of information will never be able to act as the fourth estate.

A two week trial has already been carried out in an area in Essex which concluded that a range of stories were simply not being covered whilst others covered should have been higher up the news pyramid.

Johnson estimates that to implement this model nationwide would mean employing between 500-800 people with a cost of £15-18m.As he pointed out that is three Jonathan Rosses.

However in the current economic climate it is difficult to see how funding will be obtained.

One way of obtaining funding is for established successful businesses to step in and one successful business is Microsoft.Alastair Bruce from the organisation told the assembled audience how Microsoft Local is trying to fill the gap.

Their model of aggregating content and information to establish what was important to the local community was interesting but will be criticized as technology driving journalism rather than the other way round.

It was interesting that property prices and schools were the topics were the topics they felt were of most interest to the population.

It was an interesting day with lots of ideas but whether we have solved the broken business model problem,that,I very much doubt