By Gregory Favre

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For more on how journalists can secure a promising future for the industry, take a look at the package of reflections from the current newsroom leaders who attended Poynter's recent Future of News conference. Learn more about leadership in one of our seminars. Sign up to receive Leading Lines by e-mail, click here.

What's the future of news?

For two days last month, 27 editors and publishers met at Poynter to discuss, dissect and develop ideas and predictions about that future in this new world of blogging and citizen journalism and podcasts and all of the still-to-come delivery platforms that are on the drawing boards or in the minds of technological wizards.

It was the kickoff program for David Zeeck's year as president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, a year in which he plans to highlight the bond of trust between newspapers and readers and explore more fully how the industry moves forward toward a Web-based world crammed with changes yet to be imagined.

Rusty Coats, general manager of TBO.com and a participant in the conference, set the tone when he said, "Tomorrow is our permanent address."

There was conversation about the bottom line and how that affects the future. About the online present and what lurks beyond. About what news will look like in the years to come. About the value and values of journalism. And about change and how we should lead in the universe of the known and unknown.

Talk revolved around a number of disparate issues:

• the new relationship with an audience that is choosing from a much larger menu of media choices;
  
• the need for rapid product development;
  
• the pressure to be all things to all people;
  
• the general distrust of the news media by more and more people;
  
• the Internet's potential for journalism and
  
• the question of whether editors can be trusted to lead change quickly enough.
  

This was the beginning of at least a year-long conversation. There were no halleluias at the end of the two days, just a clearer, better understanding of the challenges -- and some ideas about how to meet them.

When I think of the future of news, I think of all of the information we give readers to help them live and learn and participate in a democracy. And I think about how frightening it would be if that flow of information stopped or was diminished; if it were clogged up by our fascination and love affair with how we deliver it, rather than how we produce it and how well we produce it. And I worry about the frequent insistence that we place a much larger premium on our financial performance than we do on the role we play in our communities and in our institutions and in a democratic society.

We must continue to strengthen the muscles of our content. If we allow them to atrophy, our newspapers, our Web sites, our podcasts and everything else we do will become irrelevant.

We know what happened after Sept. 11, in those days of fear and mourning and awakened patriotism. The future of news was immediate. Readers wanted information, context and meaning. Sensationalism was pushed off our pages, fundamentals had never been more important, expertise was everything. And we learned, once again, the timeless lesson that incisive and analytical journalism, as well as humanistic journalism -- the language of the heart -- are the essential ingredients of a great news organization.

We saw it again last August, when Katrina struck such a mighty blow across the Gulf Coast, crushing city after city and leaving broken hearts and broken homes in her wake.

Men and women at TheSun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., at TheTimes-Picayune in New Orleans, and at other papers in the area, set aside their own grief, set aside their own pain, set aside their own losses to report the news, to provide a lifeline for those of us who were wading in the waters of ignorance. They courageously gave all of us a place to come together, in print and online, to share our fears and our hopes and our feelings.

Others with much more wisdom and vision can dream about how we will deliver news in the future. I am more concerned about how we keep faith with those readers, on any platform, who want insight and wit and integrity in reporting; who want information that includes knowledge and a sense of perspective; who want intellectual honesty and a devotion to fairness; and who have a hunger for good writing and good storytelling, for the graceful use of the language, for showing what happened rather than just telling them, or, as Faulkner once said, helping others by lifting their hearts.

The Future of News? If we lose our souls, our work will be hollow and meaningless and the question will then be, What future?
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