Kristina Eastham a digital strategist at Digitaria, a digital strategy agency, described her panel inspiration coming from talking about how technology changes our language. She described this as “a kind of boring topic.” At SXSW this topic is anything but. As a veteran SXSW panelist she will moderate the panel “If Content Is King, Who is Sheriff.”

Eastham’s panel gets right to the problem at hand: “Now, publishing isn’t just free—it’s encouraged.” We publish for SEO, sponsored content, branded content, and blogging. So, what does journalistic integrity mean in the digital space?” Eastham asks. Eastham’s panel might not give the answers you’re hoping for, but it definitely will be the start of a new conversation.

What Eastham stresses is that quality is the most important thing to people on the web. Whereas before, content was based around writing keyword heavy content, now we see people writing for clicks and shares. She describes the current Internet publishing model as; “publish first and ask questions later.” She described the current model working in a way so that publishers are counting the number of clicks and shares driving traffic to their site that happen on their website. When they have the breaking story first they get the most clicks and shares and when they publish the correction story stating the initial story was wrong… they get more clicks and shares. This drives content that is often poorly researched and just flat out wrong sometimes.

Eastham referenced the recent article “The Year We Broke The Internet”. The story emphasizes Eastham’s argument by making its points using all the fake viral stories that emerged last year: the snow on the Egyptian pyramids and Elan Gale’s twitter fight with another passenger. It described how some of last year’s most viral stories were fake and the implications behind the model of online publishing.

Eastham will moderate the panel consisting of Gail Marie, a content editor from the advertising agency McKinney, Mike Schmidt, the multimedia director at National Geographic, and Robert Hernandez a USC Annenberg Professor of Journalism. The diverse group represented will allow for a multi-view conversation about the important issue of who is moderating the content produced online.

The panel will be held on Monday March 10th from 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM in the Austin Convention Center Room, 12AB.

Follow the panelists at @Kreastham @gmariethatsme  and @webjournalist