The Press Gazette is out with a list of “The New Media Establishment - 50 people shaping online journalism” in Britain. The publication took nominations from readers; the ultimate rankings were made by an industry-wide panel of judges, who did not know each other’s identities. As the intro notes, “the methodology lead to some unexpected results, of course, but offers at least a rough guide of whose ideas and innovations are being watched most closely.” The top 11:
1. Rupert Murdoch, chairman & CEO, News Corp. “His ‘digital immigrant’ speech at the American Society of Newspaper Editors 18 months ago may come to be seen as a turning point of online journalism.”
2. Ashley Highfield, director, BBC Future Media & Technology
3. Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist
4. Simon Waldman, director of digital strategy & development, Guardian Media Group
5. Pete Clifton, head of BBC News Interactive
6. Carolyn McCall, Guardian Media Group chief executive
7. Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian
8. Emily Bell, director of digital content, Guardian News and Media
9. Annelies van den Belt, new media director, Telegraph Group
10. Murdoch MacLennan, chief executive, Telegraph Group.
11. Oh Yeonho, Founder, Ohmynews,
Others on the list include Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe, founders of MySpace, #12; our own Rafat Ali at #22; Tim O’reilly, #23;Jeff Jarvis, #24; Neil Budde, #26; James Murdoch, #35; Dan Gillmor, #39. The most surprising U.S. name to me? Matt Drudge, #26.
—Why Rafat made the list: “Rafat Ali is a symbol of how the internet can empower journalists to make a living as self-publishers rather than employees. Since he founded the business blog PaidContent.org in his east-London flat after being made redundant as a technology journalist in 2003, it has grown into one of the sources of news and analysis for the digital media content industries. Earlier this year, Ali secured venture capital investment, and is believed to be using part of this investment to set up a UK-specific version of the site.”
Who would make your U.S. list and why? Please leave a note in the comments. UK watchers, who was left off? Overrated? Underrated?