I’ve grown accustomed to answering questions about the future of journalism, the life expectancy of printed newspapers and the financial prospects of online journalism. I have my opinions, of course. But the skepticism I’m used to hearing from journalists in the U.S. pales in comparison to some of the comments heard at a panel discussion I took part in last night in Dubai.

And with good reason.

Turns out, the Gulf Region still likes their print. In fact, arguably the region’s best newspaper launched just three years ago. In the U.S. we have the Huffington Post overtaking the Washington Post in online audience, but in the UAE it’s the upstart National shaking up the region – in print.

There are a number of English-language newspapers here, all printed in full broadsheet and full color (yes, on every page!) They are full of ads, too. Online media has a role for the traditional media companies, but it’s limited, compared to the U.S. and other cities in the West. And social media, especially Twitter, have been slow to gain critical mass. (Although apparently Facebook is doing quite well.)

Pia Heikkila answers a question from the audience.

Still, the future of journalism in the Middle East was apparent from the panelists assembled, and were representative of panel discussions I often do in the States. Pia Heikkila represented “big brand media.” As a freelancer, she sells her work to the BBC, Guardian and Al Jazeera (where she used to work). She flew in from Kabul where she is currently doing an assignment as a one-woman video journalist (5 months pregnant, to boot).

“Digital journalism is in its infancy, but has unlimited of potential. If the old dinosaurs don’t embrace the new world, they will die. The new world is already here. We need to change the way we think,” Heikkila said.

Also on the panel were a couple of new media success stories from the Gulf region. Ali Al Saloom is a self-described and well-known “brand” for his Ask Ali column in newspapers and corresponding website. He has also published a book and produces videos.

“Print is king,” Saloom said. “I know the cultures are different in the UK and in America, but print is still king here.”

Nabila Usman disagreed. Usman is a reporter/writer/blogger for Newzglobe.com, which just launched in the UAE and is already seeing impressive traffic. She described the content as “quirky” and “edgy” and apparently stirred up quite a controversy recently when she tried to attend a media forum at a bar while wearing her hajib (which is not allowed under UAE law). She and a few others were turned away, which she reported, and caused quite an uproar judging from the comments.

Usman predicted print newspapers going away in the next 10 years and envisioned taking her children to see copies of them in a museum. (Nice touch.)

While I’m confident that newspapers will still be available in print in the Gulf in 10 years, I’m also confident that online news will command a much bigger piece of the audience – and revenue – than today. The region might be a few years behind the U.S. in terms of technology and startup news projects, but this is a place that knows how to bigger/faster/better as well as anywhere. I won’t be surprised if we, in the U.S., are looking to the UAE for online news innovation by 2020.

Thanks to Richard Dean of Dubai Eye radio station for having me on his show yesterday. We covered a lot of ground – from citizen journalism to jobs to the business prospects for media’s big boys – in less than 20 minutes. If you’re interested, you can listen to the interview here.

Azerbaijan has had the world’s fastest growing economy for the past five years. That growth hasn’t extended to the media sector, however, as the spread of news remains limited to a few pro-government newspapers and some underground anti-government publications.

During my four days in Baku, the nation’s capital city, I met with dozens of journalists. Some had jobs at newspapers or TV stations, some were writing on their own and many were just starting out as students. But they all had the same passion for journalism that brought you and I to this profession. (Rashad Shirin, right, served as my interpreter for four days in Baku, making it possible for me to discuss journalism with Azeri journalists.)

In Azerbaijan, however, there are far more hurdles to clear. News outlets must receive a special license from the government, which means there is no investigative reporting. (The government doesn’t tolerate criticism.) Independent news sources, mostly online, apparently operate with a single-minded focus on complaining about the government, so the idea of journalistic objectivity and fairness are a “work in progress,” to put it mildly.

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While few, if any, of you will be able to attend, I still thought you’d be interested in knowing about an event I’ll be participating in tomorrow. I hope to send updates via Twitter, but I’m afraid of AT&T’s data roaming charges on my iPhone so probably won’t do any live-tweeting unless there is wifi.

From the press release:

On May 24th, SAE Institute Dubai will launch its inaugural Digital Journalism program with a Tweet-up and panel at Shelter Dubai, kicking off at 7 pm.

New media has changed how news is reported and experienced. Who are these new journalists? What are their tools? Can the ‘old’ media survive? And what do audiences gain from ‘Journalism 2.0?’

Speakers for the event are:

Mark Briggs–blogger, journalist and author of Journalism 2.0 (2007), Journalism Next (2009) and CEO and co-founder of Serra Media.
Pia Heikkila–documentarian, producer, and backpack journalist filing stories her laptop around the Middle East.
Nabila Usman–writer and journalist, business development executive at Newzglobe.com, an online news portal.
Khaled Khalifa – Head of Office, United Nations – Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) Middle East and Asia Bureau.

The discussion will be moderated by Reg Athwal, Co-Founder and Chairman of online television platform onetvo.com.

Learn more about SAE Dubai’s Digital Journalism program on our website.
Click here to see Shelter Dubai map.
Follow DiJoDubai on twitter to learn more.

Can bloggers be journalists? It’s a debate that raged for years in the U.S. (far too long if you ask me), and it can still raise hackles. In Baku, Azerbaijan, it could mean the difference between having a free press or not.

Visiting Baku this week and speaking with different groups of journalists and journalism students, the question whether bloggers can be journalists surfaces time and again. In Baku, where newspapers must be granted a media license from the government to publish, blogging is one of the only outlets for truly independent journalism to reach and audience. It’s so important to emerging democracies like Azerbaijan, formerly a part of the Soviet Union, that President Obama signed the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act this week, hoping to promote a free press around the world.

Rashad Shirin translates what I had just said for a group of journalists at the American Center, University of Languages, Baku.

“One important thing you should be teaching them is to check facts and to write balanced pieces, not propaganda which can easily be discredited,” advised Onnik Krikorian, an editor for Global Voices Online in the region, by email. “There needs to be some journalistic skills introduced into their blogging to make it more effective, especially when it comes to checking facts or identifying what is speculation, gossip or rumor and what is fact.”

The debate is different than in the U.S., where access to prominent events like the Winter Olympics seems to be the last battlefield for bloggers. Here, bloggers who would like to produce independent journalism are fearful of being misunderstood and silenced by the government. The mainstream newspapers don’t do any blogging on their websites either, so it remains a this-or-that situation, much like we had in the U.S. before about 2006. (In my presentation, I show the NY Times blog page, which has dozens of blogs, and explain how dismissive most American newsrooms were of blogging just five years ago.)

Journalists in the U.S. are concerned for the future. Journalists in Baku are concerned for the present.

I’ll be honest: When I received that first email almost a year ago from Terry Davidson at the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan, expressing interest in translating my book and having me visit the country, my first thought was “where the heck is that?” Azerbaijan is a former Soviet Union country near Georgia, just north of Iran, and Baku is the capital city, perched on the western shore of the Caspian sea.

I’m here this week speaking to various groups of journalists and students. And tonight, I’ll be attending a special “book launch” as the embassy begins distributing copies of Journalism 2.0 that were translated into Azerbaijani. (This is the fourth language for Journalism 2.0. Unfortunately I can still only read one.) Yesterday I spent three hours with a group of about 20 student journalists and another 3 hours with a small group of “A-list bloggers” from Baku.

The students are eager, ambitious and idealistic, just like the students I speak to in the U.S. Unlike their American counterparts, however, they have a much harder career path to travel since there really isn’t an economic model for journalism in Azerbaijan. Advertising isn’t really a factor in the media and the newspapers and TV stations here are tightly controlled by the government, which probably explains their tiny reach. In a city of about 2 million people, the largest newspaper has a circulation of about 3,000 7,000 (correction made 5/23/10).
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This week’s New York Times magazine takes a stab at “What are you really worth” this week and includes a lengthy piece on journalists. I’ll spare you the context of the how the market has devalued traditional journalism while creating new opportunities and simply recommend you read the entire article by Andrew Rice. The money quote:

… for some — possibly foolhardy — reason, a lot of people still want to work in journalism, and even amid the depths of the recession, there have been stirrings of creativity. A multitude of younger, nimbler enterprises have popped up, unencumbered by the past and ready to try anything. History suggests that few of these ventures will ultimately survive: Web start-ups have a failure rate between 70 and 90 percent. But it’s quite possible that the experiments they’re staging are already producing the kind of innovations that make for new, sustainable business models.

For continuing coverage of independent journalism startups, check out the section we developed on Lost Remote to cover this emerging sector.