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The latest from the API Crisis Summit of 50 newspaper company CEOs: not much.

As Fitz and Jen at Editor & Publisher report: a conference call about the summit’s outcome was scheduled for today, but was canceled at the last minute. Jen quoted an e-mail from Mark Mulholland, associate director at API:

“Because no reportable consensus was reached at last week’s ‘API Summit on Saving An Industry In Crisis,’ today’s press conference call originally scheduled for 11 a.m. EST has been canceled. The summit conference was a constructive dialog among senior industry leaders, serving as a catalyst for continuing conversation and efforts at reversing declining revenue and profit trends. As progress toward those goals is made, additional information will be provided. We apologize for the short notice of the press conference cancellation.”

Yes, it’s true, none of us outside that API conference room should have expected miracles to come out of a 7-hour meeting of the CEO minds aided by a couple of corporate turnaround gurus. On the other hand, what has come out following the session is disappointing, to say the least. It doesn’t exactly promote faith in the ability of top newspaper executives to lead the industry out of the mess it’s in.

I’d still like to hear from some of the API summit participants. Hey, CEOs, how about blogging of your experience that day and your perceptions? Blogging not your thing? I’d love to chat with you about the summit; here’s my office phone number: 303-543-7810. I’d be happy to take a break from my other work and blog about our conversation. Or e-mail me: steve@outing.us

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OK, we have a little clarification about last Thursday’s behind-closed-doors American Press Institute Crisis Summit of 50 newspaper company CEOs. You’ll recall the brouhaha over an API staff summary of the 7-hour event, which concluded with, “Participants agreed to reconvene in six months, and to explore additional collaboration.” That got a bunch of people upset (including me): What?! You’ve been told your industry is in serious crisis and many of your companies are on the brink of bankruptcy, and you want to wait 6 months?

But here comes explanation from Donna Barrett of API (which she posted in the lengthy comment thread of my previous blog item):

“I am one of the CEO participants and an executive officer of API. The API report got it wrong. No newspaper executive in the room suggested that we wait six months to meet again. When someone said we should have a timely follow-up, the facilitator said, ‘Like in six months?’ and was quickly told by the participants that it needed to be much sooner than that. There are other problems with the report. It is a poor reflection of the event, which I believe was over-hyped from the beginning. The forum was a constructive dialog between newspaper executives, period. This is all anyone should have realistically expected to accomplish in seven hours.”

Thanks for the clarification and insight, Donna. (This does demonstrate the dangers of closed-door meetings, where people start to form opinions based on limited information of what went on.)

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