A few reasons why the upcoming National Arts Journalism Summit which is taking place on October 2 at the University of California Los Angeles has me stoked:
1. It’s about time that arts journalists from around the world got together to figure out how to make cultural coverage viable from a business perspective for the future. As old media struggles to stay afloat and new media struggles to find its financial footing in a tough economic climate, the summit will provide an array of concepts aimed at promoting sustainability.
2. The summit is being streamed live from the summit website and will also be archived, meaning that people can tune in from all over the globe on the day of the event or afterwards. People can also participate in the discussion remotely on October 2 via text message or Twitter.
3. Attending the event, as I hope to do, will provide arts journalists with a wonderful opportunity to mingle and exchange ideas.
4. The summit is unlikely to come up with black and white “answers” in response to the complex challenges of finding models to secure the future of arts journalism. But it will hopefully get people asking the right questions about potential models going forward.
5. As someone who put forward a project for inclusion in the summit (though I sadly didn’t make the final cut) I’m personally very excited to find out about a range of projects from across diverse arts areas. The producers of the event have not revealed the names of the five main selected presenters for the summit, though the presenters themselves are already in the know. The revelation of the selected projects on the day of the event itself will no doubt add a little frisson of expectation and excitement to the proceedings.