On April 19-22, 2006, twenty-two people passionate about journalism – professionals from print, broadcast, new media, both mainstream and independent, citizens, educators, a funder and a student – convened in St. Louis to consider “What is the next newsroom and how do we create it?”
Filled with rich, multi-textured, and creative conversations, personal shifts from despair to hope occurred for many participants. Sufficient clarity emerged to describe not the “next newsroom”, but rather, a new “news ecology”. This articulation holds the promise of providing inspiration and direction for an industry in crisis. Also significant, given that a key intention of this meeting was to produce fundable proposals, a remarkable 11 of the 16 final-day participants identified projects they intend to pursue, including efforts in West Oakland, CA and Atwater, MN along with several ideas intended to accelerate the growth of this new eco-system of journalism, such as a handbook for media transformation and a program for creating change in newsrooms. While we are under no illusion that all of these projects will come to fruition, given the roles and commitment of the participants, we expect many will find traction and funding.
By metaphorically removing the newsroom walls and taking the journalist out of the cube, the qualities of the new news ecology that surfaced include:
| CURRENT NEWSROOM | NEW NEWS ECOLOGY |
| Journalism as… | |
| Lecture | Conversation |
| low tolerance for experimentation (like peanut butter in the fridge; it doesn’t move) | Community of innovation |
| central authority | Community connector |
| knowledge-centric | Relationship-centric |
| one-to-many | many-to-many |
| profit-driven | mission-driven |
| Journalist as… | |
| Outsider | Community member |
| lone wolf | collaborative partner |
| arbiter of truth | sense-maker |
| focused on the external world | focused on their inner life and the external world |
| Expert | coordinator, facilitator, convener, evaluator, refiner |
| Professional, dispassionate | professional and citizen, passion in the mix |
| content creator | content creator and guide |
| Content that… | |
| Arouses | inspires engagement |
| publisher owns and creates | public owns and creates |
| answers who, what when, where, why and how | contextualizes purpose – why the audience should care – and answers who, what when, where, why and how |
| pours around the ads | serves a greater good |
| follows the inverted pyramid | edited for readability, not style |
| Stories sourced… | |
| from within the news organization | from many people and places |
| are deadline driven | are continually unfolding |
| Dissemination of stories… | |
| media specific | multi-purpose (e.g., print, broadcast, web, podcast, cell phone, etc.) |
| Economics… | |
| ad supported | multiple sources of support |
| high cost of production and distribution | low-cost distribution |
| most of the cost is not journalism | costs mostly journalism related |