PANEL: Global Media
Keynote: Li Xiguang, president of Tsinghua University’s International Center for Communication Studies
Master of Ceremonies: Kenneth Li, Technology Correspondent, Financial Times
Panelists:
Jared Kushner, publisher and owner of The Observer Media Group
Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
Jonathan Shen, senior producer for China Central Television
Riz Khan, host of “Riz Khan” on Al Jazeera International
Panel summary by Josh Sanburn, World Policy Journal
We live in a “brave new media world,” said Li Xiguang, the keynote speaker on global media, and challenged journalists to become smarter with new ways of informing the public. LI promoted what he called “dialogue journalism” and while he didn’t address China’s suppression of media outlets, he did chastise writers and editors for producing “bad journalism.” 
The myriad ways media have changed within the last few decades and the pervasiveness of poorly reported stories were the starting points for a discussion on the traditional role of the journalist and the rise of the citizen journalist within the blogosphere. Kenneth Li proposed that today “everyone is a journalist,” but Jimmy Wales wasn’t so sure. “Everyone can write what they want,” he said. “Far more people today are ‘opinion columnists.’ But that’s a very different thing from journalism.”
Wales said journalists should still strive for neutrality, and he weighed the pros and cons of Twitter, which has helped organize protests in countries like Iran but has also been shown to cause widespread hysteria. “The medium is potentially dangerous,” he said.
It’s true that everyone has become a commentator, said Riz Khan, but that it’s more difficult today than ever before for governments to hide and control the media. “I’m happy to adjust to a new world where the old media is disappearing,” he said.