I wish I had attended this event, but having missed it Chris O’Brien’s summary of the event is a good one. An excerpt (boldfacing added by me):
My main takeaways from the day were far different what I would have expected going in. I’ve been in search of new ways to generate revenue to maintain the newsrooms we have (or some version of them). But the big lesson of the day was to focus on the other side of things: Cost. There was widespread agreement across the day that cost structures of newsrooms need to be dramatically lower. But before you think I’ve become a cheerleader for the rampant corporate cost cutting plaguing us, hear me out.
Update: Jeff Jarvis, one of the organizers for the “New Business Models for News” event at CUNY, just posted his summary of the event.