The 2015 Johnston Lecture will kick-off the conference on Thursday, April 9 at 5:30pm. This portion of the conference is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first serve. An Opening Reception will immediately follow.
2015 Johnston Lecturer: Ken Doctor from Newsonomics
Five Truths, Four Paradoxes and The Long Road Ahead
Doctor is an analyst with a ringside seat at the greatest story ever told about the global news media industry. Fully employing more than 35 years of experience across a wide range of media, he’s become a go-to speaker, press source and consultant for legacy and emerging press around the world, talking about emerging Newsonomics.
The Newsonomics “practical forecasting” discipline is about fact and metrics, not journalistic religion nor habit, and derives from a trusted access across the legacy and digital news marketplace. Early on, Doctor alerted audiences and clients on the value of the tablet in the mobile age and laid out why well-deployed paywalls would indeed work, when many others lampooned the notion. Today, he focuses on the nitty-gritty of the new business models – and revenue streams – now being built brick by brick.
As a consultant and speaker, he works with media globally, advising on new sustainable business models of contemporary news. In that work, he focuses on the many issues and opportunities offered by the transformation of news and consumer media, as they move from print and broadcast to digital. Increasingly, he focuses on Relationship Newsonomics, how news companies must deepen and widen customer relationships with both readers and merchants to compete in a Google/Facebook-dominated ad world.
Doctor writes regularly on the business of media change for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and for Capital New York. He also contributes to CNN Money and Politico. Doctors is currently working on his second book following “Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends That Will Shape the News You Get.”
About the Johnston Lecture
The Richard W. Johnston Memorial Project brings professionals to the school for campus lectures, workshops, and discussions with students, faculty members, and members of the community. It honors Dick Johnston, a gifted magazine editor, writer, and war correspondent who devoted himself to high-quality journalism. The project was made possible with generous gifts from his widow, Laurie; George E. Jones of U.S. News and World Report; and the Correspondents Fund.
Johnston, a 1936 graduate of the school, began his career as a news reporter during the Great Depression, working for the Eugene Register-Guard and the Eugene Daily News. He went to Portland with United Press and during WWII had a distinguished career as a correspondent in the Pacific theater. He is best known for founding and shaping Sports Illustrated, where he served as executive editor until his death in 1981 at the age of 66.