• Tim Burrowes, Founding Editor of Mumbrella
• David McGrath – GM, News & Sport at Telstra BigPond
• Bronwen Clune, Founder and CEO of Norg Media
• James Tuckerman, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Anthill

The brief was this;
You’re newly in control of The Australian National And Local Output Group (A.N.A.L.O.G) what would you do to save it? Extreme solution: sell it and start something else radically different. Minimal solution: do what you’ve always done best, but having to continually cut costs? What would you do – justify it with numbers, discuss changes to distribution, content mix or market or other options.

We’ve given all our panellists the current vital statistics of ANALOG; its people, its audiences, its platforms, its costs, its culture and how the money is trending. It’s the discussion we’ve all had -normally over red wine- “you know what I’d do if I was king for a day…” so get ready to compare your vision of the future with theirs.

Biographies

Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the founding editor of Mumbrella which launched in December 2008, since then it has become the must read of Australia’s advertising, PR & media world – blisteringly fast.

Prior to that, he was group editor of Reed Business Information’s Media Group, including editor of B&T. During his two years at the helm, he led the successful resdesign and relaunch of B&T magazine, oversaw the launch of the B&T Today daily email newsletter, and launched Digital Media magazine, which won launch of the year at Publishers Australia’s annual Bell Awards.

Before coming to Australia, Tim was the launch editor of the Middle East edition of Campaign magazine, which covers advertising and marketing stories throughout the region.

And in his previous role to that, he was editor of Media Week in the UK. He was twice named the British Society of Magazine Editors’ business editor of the year.

You can follow him on Twitter @mumbrella.

David McGrath

As General Manager of News and Sport at Telstra Media David McGrath is the boss at one of the fastest growing news organisations in Australia. Telstra has the “number 1″ mobile news destination, the AFL, NRL & V8 supercar portals, and BigPond Sport incorporating exclusive Online and Mobile content from ESPN, Thoroughbred Racing Channel (TVN) & the English Premier League (EPL).

David was Director of News & Information Services at Yahoo7 through the period when Channel 7 and Yahoo merged their online news output. Before that he worked for independent media production and consultant companies, ‘Stimulate Media’, ‘TWI’ and ‘Now.com’. Back in the day (think 1989) he worked for West Australian Newspapers as a reporter, then as a presenter/reporter for Channel 9.

Bronwen Clune

Founder and CEO of Norg Media, a company dedicated to creating people powered news sites around the world. Bronwen launched Norg in 2006 with what she says was a very “green” outlook on how the web worked. Not one to sit on the sidelines and very much in awe of the changes she saw it bringing to media, she wanted to explore that for herself. After somewhat of an epiphany and an intense few months of idea-jamming, she launched her vision for a future news organisation.

The site has won a number of awards including a Webby honoree award for innovation in journalism. Since then she’s gone on to become a regular commentator on the changing media landscape and has talked at various international and national media conferences on the subject. She spent most of her early professional career as a journalist on a major daily paper.

Bronwen is also on the inaugural board for the Foundation of Public Interest Journalism exploring new business models to fund investigative journalism. While she has grand delusions that she can make a difference, she is the first to admit she has no idea what the future of media holds, but believes we need to experiment.

James Tuckerman

James Tuckerman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Anthill – One of Australia’s leading media outlets for entrepreneurs and fast growth business owners. He is an Australian opinion leader and vocal commentator on the topics of innovation and entrepreneurship.

He is responsible for the launch of numerous initiatives and programs dedicated to the promotion and development of new and innovative Australian businesses, such as the Cool Company Awards, 30under30, the SMART 100 and Pitch Club.

Trained in law at the University of Melbourne, James commenced his career as a public relations consultant. However, at the tender age of 26, his career took a radical turn when he quit his ‘day job’ to launch Anthill Magazine from the spare bedroom of his parent’s home. Despite only $28,000 in personal savings and no experience in the publishing world, James has grown Anthill from the seed of concept to become one of Australia’s leading business magazines and largest online community for innovators and entrepreneurs. James holds bachelor’s degrees in Law (with Honours) and Arts from the University of Melbourne Australia.

Wendy Hogan

Unfortunately Wendy has had to withdraw.

We are very, very excited about this one, and we need to pay tribute to the excellent and smart people of Anthill, who run their own Pitch Club for would-be entrepreneurs of all stripes.

Get in the mood with Ari Gold.

Our good friends at the MEAA grabbed some attendee’s impressions of the night.

Media in the pub from Media Alliance on Vimeo, featuring David

Wen Huang’s influence in the world of photography stretches around the globe; she started as a photo editor with the Xinhua agency in 1989, has been based in Germany, in America at Stanford University as a Knight Fellow, all while keeping roots in her home country China. The following is just a small sample of her professional biography: In 2000 she published Target, a book about the Kosovan war, she has been a jury member for The World Press Photo Contest and The Pictures of the Year International. She’s  an advisor to the National Geographic Society for their All Roads Photo Project and to the Board of the Alexia Foundation. In China she hosted a TV show on photography, she curates and organises photography festivals and contests, while working as the senior photo marketing analyst of the News & Information Centre at the Xinhua News Agency.

Wen Huang will be in conversation with Walkey winner David Dare Parker, one of the original co-founders of Reportage, a Director of FotoFreo Photographic Festival and Walkley Advisory Board Member.

Even if you’ve only got a passing interest in photography, you’re assured of hearing some fascinating perspectives on the current world of photography and what might be coming around the corner.

Media In The Pub was going to hold off announcing our next full blown forum until a few more details are nailed down, but we figured this would be a great chance to re-introduce ourselves in a cut-down format where we don’t have to be the centre of attention. (You know how it is when you’ve been out of circulation for a while.) We’ll be back in early November, and we’ll announce the topic on Tuesday night at the pub. Trust us – it’ll be topical.

At the last Media In The Pub night -yes, almost a year ago- we asked what the future of media careers might be. Designers met academics, met entrepreneurs, met journalists, met producers, met students, met organisers. Met barkeeps.

For next week’s event we’re expecting to get an even wider cross section of people from Sydney’s photography and wider media community. Also, we’re thrilled to have the support of the Media & Entertainment Arts Alliance. They’re bringing Wen Huang to Sydney, and together we’re cooking up some nice ideas for the next Media In The Pub event. This time the break won’t be so long.

Media In The Pub is a forum to discuss the changes that digitisation is bringing to media. We know that there is a huge amount of expertise and talent in Sydney’s media community so we love getting suggestions, comments and ideas. Get in touch if you’ve got notes or questions.

Photos from the event are on facebook, which you’ll need to be signed into to see.

I’ll keep on collecting links on this subject. If you want to stay up to date on them you can check delicious, or add this RSS feed to your feed reader: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/ferguspitt/mediainthepub+jobs.

Original Text: BBC World Service boss Richard Sambrook reckons that by 2015 we’ll all study psychology, programming, business, media production, marketing, then sub-contract for bosses we never meet, work in bursts then lay on the beach between gigs. You can get his view first hand on his blog.

Meanwhile Fairfax freelancers are feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the new contracts they’ve had to sign. But there’s an optimistic side; at the same time in Sydney an ecosystem of independent media companies – often just one or two people – is starting to bubble. Who knows how long they’ll last, or how big they’ll grow?

Will that ecosystem be any good? For the people who work in it or for the people who use its products? That the structure of media is changing is an accepted truth (especially if most of your industry reading is from overseas) but is that even true of our local Sydney industry? If so will that actually have an impact on Australian careers?

Come along on the night, and have your say.

At time of writing the facebook group alone has 30 58 62 74 attendees, including people from across the Sydney mainstream and independent media ecosystem.