Event: Media08 Question: Who should I speak to?

s’not often you see ‘cocktails’ in a header image

I managed to wrangle a VIB pass to Media08. VIB stands for Very Important Blogger. Media08 don’t call me that – I’ve given myself that title – let’s call is a ‘user generated title‘? heh.

The organisers of Media08 have been nice enough to treat me like a real journalist. Which means I should probably take up smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky, getting into fights and accepting cash for… oh ok, lets play nicely. Here’s an email from the organisers, God bless their little cotton socks:

Hi Laurel, a quick note regarding MEDIA’08 – can you please let me know if you would like to speak with any of the presenting (see list below) on during the day on Friday and I will arrange.

Key note speakers:

• David Kirk, CEO, Fairfax Media
• Jack Matthews, CEO, Fairfax Digital
• Vicky Taylor, Editor of Interactivity, BBC News (London)
• Jonathan Haagen, Social Media Analyst, The Economist
• Assia Grazioli-Venier, Head of Ministry of Sound TV
• Kevin Anderson, Head of Blogging and Interaction, The Guardian (London)
• Kay Gruenwoldt, Head of Marketing, Nokia (Helsinki, Vancouver)
• Alan Noble, Engineering Site Director, Google Australia and NZ (Sydney)
• Kaiser Kuo, Director of Digital, Ogilvy China (Beijing)
• Lee Stephens, CEO, Aegis Media (Sydney)
• Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO, Hungama Mobile; Vice Chairman, Mobile Entertainment Forum – Asia (Mumbai)
• Kevin Swanepoel, The One Club (New York)
• Jean K. Min, Director, International Division, OhMyNews (Seoul)
• Mohamed Nanyhay, Head of New Media, Al Jazeera (Doha)
• Richard MacManus, Founder and Editor, Read Write Web (Wellington)
• Benjamin Joffe, Founder and CEO, +8*|Plus Eight Star (Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing)
• Niall Kennedy, Producer, Widget Summit (San Francisco

Because I’m the generous type (and very lazy) I thought I’d offer it up here – who do you want to speak to and what questions? I’ll try and hijack ’em, ask and then hat tip back to you.

Actually it’s funny I’m putting this out there- Bruce Belsham (ABC) and David Higgins (News.com) asked at this morning’s conference if any bloggers had ever asked ‘journalistic’ questions. As in ‘done interviews’. I didn’t understand what they were getting at – that we bloggers don’t do due diligence research? But what about podcasts – we interview people whenever we can get to them. And ask questions on their blog (if they have one) and then comment back on our blog if we can get a response. But I wouldn’t be waving around the “real journalists get access, fake citizen journalists don’t” argument if I were them. Cos it’s all changing…

… we are starting to get VIB passes! One day soon, ratbag journalists might share a press conference briefing with ratbag bloggers. And then the world will end.
I’m prepared to take a toilet roll of questions if you ‘ave ’em. So, if you could ask any of these guys anything, what would you say and to whom? Let it rip… (if you are going to be at Media08, come over and say hi!) . Don’t say, my darlings, that I never do anything for you.

EDIT: Jye Smith created this VIB badge for me. It even has that reflective Web 2.0 goin’ on. Though it should be blue, no? 😛 *happy happy*