Nieman Labs Ignores “Off The Record” Declaration; Publishes NYT‘s “Internal Chat”

The Nieman Journalism Lab is a Harvard University project that describes itself as “an attempt to help journalism figure out its future in an Internet age.” Well apparently the future of journalism now includes the publishing of self-described “off-the-record” speeches, since that’s exactly what they did recently by posting video of New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller during an “internal chat” with his staffers. Keller’s speech reveals a fair amount of the Times’ digital strategy, and now, thanks to Nieman Labs, now the world can hear what was meant only for his staff to hear.

Nieman Labs introduces the video and text of the speech with the following intro:

It’s not an earth-shattering speech, but it’s a peek at a large organization that, like its competitors, is trying to best integrate its print and digital operations. Keller describes prioritizing the web at the Times as “our Manhattan Project.”

Video of the meeting, which Warren declared “off the record,” was posted on an internal Times server and provided to us. Here’s a transcript of Keller’s remarks:

In truth, the headlines from his speech are few and far between, though Gawker pointed out the nifty revelation that NY Times was working with Apple on their much ballyhooed and game-changing “Tablet” device that might save/ruin the publishing industry as we currently know it.

Bill Keller speaks to the digital group at The New York Times from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

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