We like to sit around the newsroom and talk about the future of our business.
No, not really.
We're too busy putting out a newspaper. We don't have time for philosophical discussions.
Other people are doing it for us.
Newspapers are dying. Newspapers are changing. Who reads newspapers anyway?
I do. And so, apparently, do you.
But the newspaper business definitely is evolving and probably not fast enough. Someday we may get our daily newspaper delivered on a handheld device like a cell phone. You may (if you don't do it already) read the whole thing on a computer screen.
Frankly, I don't care how you get your information. It's where you get it that scares me.
Radio and blogs can be dominated by opinion. TV gives you 30-second blips.
Newspaper journalists give you in-depth factual information. One of my old bosses, now teaching journalism, says journalists give us "important news that is verified, comprehensive, proportional and interesting."
Journalists don't usually toot their own horns, because we're trained to report the news, not make it. But we're starting to point out our own wonderfulness in subtle ways.
-- A guy in Indiana has started a Facebook event, "National Buy A Newspaper Day." (Facebook happenings are more powerful than you'd think.) I know I'm preaching to the choir because you're reading this in a newspaper (or maybe online, which doesn't count on National Buy A Newspaper Day) but we're encouraging everyone to actually pay money for your local paper on Feb. 2. You'll like what you see.
-- A documentary by Eric Daniel Metzgar, "Reporter," screened at the Sundance Film Festival last week. Metzgar followed the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof while he reported on poverty and conflict in the Congo in 2007. A friend who saw the movie in Utah (a fellow journalist) says it's "inspiring." A Sundance writer said, "the film immerses us in a discussion of the ways this kind of reportage reaches the public, effects change and creates a humanitarian response."
Kristof is one of my rock stars, reporting on places (Africa) and issues (women's rights, especially in the Third World) that are near and dear to me. When he was interviewed in Utah, he said that "we have tremendous privileges and tremendous power as journalists" and with those comes the responsibility to "shine the light on all sorts of forgotten issues."
That's what we all dream about when we start out as starry-eyed young journalists. We want to reach the public, effect change, make a difference, shine a light.
Whatever the vessel is that allows us to do that, we'll adapt.
Trust us. We're journalists.
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