“That four thousand word report from the Syrian refugee camp…will not be read as much as ‘10 cats that have got thoughts about Syria’,” New Statesman‘s Deputy Editor Helen Lewis said in her opening statement on the second panel of the Grapevine event at the Frontline Club on Thursday 23 January.

Read highlights of the first panel discussion here.

Merope Mills, Luke Lewis and Pete Picton

The chair head of journalism at City University, George Brock, got straight to the point and asked the panel ‘is traditional media actually dying and does it matter?’

Deputy publisher of Mail Online Pete Picton said categorically:

“If journalism is what we’re talking about then no absolutely not, in fact it’s thriving.”

Editor of Buzzfeed UK Luke Lewis:

“It’s an amazing time for journalism, not just for new outlets like Buzzfeed, the traditional ones are thriving. It was only a week or two ago that The Telegraph posted their figures of a £60million profit last year. The Guardian has had their best scoops in their history.

“Media is a really big place and we don’t need anyone else to fail in order to Buzzfeed to succeed.”

All the panelists agreed that, while media isn’t dead, the business model has to change.

http://twitter.com/rebeccacmyers/status/426478712826368002

Editor of the Saturday Guardian Merope Mills:

“The way people approach print media has to change…the traditional media money making model is dead.”

"There is still an appetite for print journalism, but the business model has to change." Merope Mills, @guardian #fbj

— Sarah Biddlecombe (@_sarahstweets) January 23, 2014

http://twitter.com/bspeed8/status/426469810109939713

H Lewis said that there is a real problem with public interest journalism:

“Who is going to be in an online only economy commissioning that four thousand word report from the Syrian refugee camp – I just don’t see that that’s a viable business model for anybody because it won’t be read by enough people. It will not be read as much as ’10 cats that have got thoughts about Syria’ – no offence to Buzzfeed.”

Buzzfeed taking a hit for cats – good retort from luke lewis #fbj

— Tom Witherow (@TomWitherow) January 23, 2014

L Lewis:

“Yes most of it is entertaining lists, you’ll also see some other stuff in there… Max Seddon we’ve got on the ground in Kiev at the moment, he wrote a series of explosive reports on what’s happening in Kiev as good as impact reporting you’ll see anywhere.”

@lukelewis says that he wants Buzzfeed to eventually supply as trusted news as the @nytimes #fbj

— Max Benwell (@Max_Benwell) January 23, 2014

Mills noted the changes she’d recognised in print media:

“There is a theme among the [print publications] that are growing and they do tend to be those longer analytical – the New Statesman is one… Nobody wants to read breaking news anyone, we all know the Victoria Line’s flooded with cement and that will be old by tomorrow.”

Mills echoed the comment made by Mona Chabali in the first panel of the evening:

“All the reporters have to be reporting a more in depth piece, the why’s of the ‘gays in Russia’ rather than the just ‘gays are being beaten up’. That is the piece you want to read at the end of the week.”

In reference to another signifying characteristic of Buzzfeed the idea of a move away from display to native advertising.

L Lewis:

“It’s nothing new, people talk about sponsored posts like it’s a new thing…[in magazines] advertorials have been around for decades. The only thing you have to worry about is that there’s a clear dividing line between what is editorial and what is commercial.”

A question from the audience asked, if you don’t charge for it how can you put a value on it?

Picton said:

“You value it in time. It’s far more competitive to get our readers to read us… time is a big currency now…that’s one of the key metrics for us now, to keep them on the site.”

Time spent engaging with online content is the new form or readers' currency. #fbj

— Hari Sethi (@Hari_Sethi) January 23, 2014

Another audience member asked the panels opinion on maintaining journalistic integrity in the battle for getting as many clicks as possible in light of the recent CNN headline which seemed to go a step too far.

@MartinBelam @jburnmurdoch @alexparsons CNN had a go & got it fairly wrong today #fbj: pic.twitter.com/uwukxg3UrE

— dan barker (@danbarker) January 23, 2014

The panel agreed that the headline missed the mark on the sensitive issue, L Lewis said about the wider topic of click bait:

“You keep hearing this word clickbait and it really annoys me because it suggests there’s another kind of headline you don’t want people to click on. I don’t know who these journalists are who are writing articles that they don’t want people to read.”

http://twitter.com/rebeccacmyers/status/426477918437801985

H Lewis added:

“Isn’t it sad that the art of the pun is now dead? I loved a good/bad pun.”

To which L Lewis replied:

“I think the pun’s had a good 200 years.”

Following the success of their events, Grapevine are launching a data-focused site in the coming months. Get in touch with Harry Lambert (@harrylambert1), Max Benwell (@maxbenwellreal) or Rebecca Choong Wilkins at contact@grapevinevents.co.uk.

Watch and listen back:

In the chair was the ever cheery Jonathan Dimbleby, who mapped out the key areas for debate. The panelists began with a feisty exchange over newspaper funding. The Times columnist David Aaronovitch argued that tabloids form a crucial part of a sustainable economic model.<

“The only parts of British journalism that make any money and aren’t subsidised are the tabloid papers, which created the sorts of abuses that we’re talking about…The only one (online) that looks likely to make some money is the Mail online. The model of the Mail Online has nothing to do with quality journalism. It’s essentially sex, tits and murder.”

Academic Angela Phillips replied that public interest journalism was actually subsidised in other parts of Europe, suggesting that this model could actually benefit journalism in the UK.

New Statesman deputy editor Helen Lewis stated that Leveson should take the global reach of internet publications into account.

“I’m surprised to find myself agreeing with Martin Clark, editor of the Mail online. We can regulate the British press all that we want but the American press could still publish very intrusive pictures, they will still follow Pippa Middleton around because there’s a market for that there. I’d like to see an acknowledgement that we’re competing in a global market place.”

Dimbleby moved on to the question of how to protect so-called victims of shoddy journalism. Academic and founder of Hacked Off Brian Catchcart expressed his frustration that when bad journalism has sold newspapers, it’s gone unpunished.<

“The journalists who wrote the stuff about Christopher Jefferies are all still in employment. At the lowest levels you need journalists to feel that there will be consequences when things go wrong… There should be statutory underpinned self-regulation. Self-regulation, but you would have certain criteria that the press would have to meet which would be subject to audit by an external body like Ofcom. Editors and proprietors shouldn’t be left to run the show themselves.”

Aaronovitch offered support for this view but struck a gloomy note in his assessment of Leveson’s impact.

“It feels to me that we’re locking the stable door after the horse has died… This is not where the great abuses are going to come from. These are the kind of epiphenomena of the last twenty years coming back to us in a form of belated accountability, just as the system changes irrevocably.”

In summing up, the panel reached a consensus that the Leveson report will hold very little weight and is almost irrelevant. It will remain up to Whitehall whether they choose to implement the Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations.