By: Pauline Millard Moving journalism into the 21st century, and figuring out how to monetize it, has the overriding theme at the Online News Association in Toronto over the first two days.
The conference, which sold out all 600 spots, covered topics such as running a digital newsroom on a budget, managing online communities and blogging ethics. The ONA annual awards will be handed out tonight.
The theme of change was reiterated by this morning?s keynote speaker, Mike Oreskes of the International Herald Tribune, a former New York Times reporter and editor. He addressed the future of journalism and how the so-called problems were actually opportunities for change.
Oreskes said that the future of journalism is bright, considering the amount of information that is available to readers.
?Journalism is the answer to information overload,? Oreskes said. ?No one has time to make sense of all information out there. This is what journalism is for.?
Oreskes said that studies show that people want news more than ever, but fewer want to pay for it, hence the popularity of free newspapers.
?Free is the new paid,? Oreskes said. ?And that?s no small thing.?
Incorporating change was the first order of business for Thursday's keynote speaker as well. Hilary Schneider, the executive vice president of Global Partner Solutions Division at Yahoo! (and former Knight Ridder online honcho) stressed that newspapers should use the web as a way to give readers local information, since data showed that one third of people went online with local intent. Fragmentation, she said, was a reality the news business will have to face directly.
?It?s an exhilarating time to be a publishing, to tell stories and connect with communities,? she said. ?But at your core you?re still a publisher.?
Schneider pointed out easy ways to add multimedia to stories, such as linking to Flickr groups of relevant photos of an event (which are updated constantly by users) and using maps as a locator tool.
Despite all the bells and whistles that journalists can now add to stories, Schnedier, like many of the panelists and speakers at the ONA conference, reminded everyone of the importance of staying true to the core values of journalism.
?We need to listen to the social networking marketplace and the bloggers who have in a way brought back the art of pamphleteering,? Oreskes said. ?We then need to combine that message with journalistic skills. Mixing tradition and change is the new future of journalism.?
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