Hope

Last night a guy named Andrew Donohue came to speak in my journalism class. He is the co-editor of an on-line non profit news organization called voiceofsandiego.org. Ever since he appeared in a front-page New York Times story about the future of journalism and on-line watchdogs he has been in demand on the "future-of-journalism" speaking circuit. Over and over, he and his organization are cited as one possible model for the future. And they are pretty cool.

Even cooler was that he took the time to come talk to students, on top of everything else he was doing.

The site is small and simple. There are only 11 staff people, of which about 6 are reporters. They are broken down into beats, just like a traditional newspaper. I would classify the writing as "bloggy" in style. But they get the facts. I adore their education reporter, who covers every little movement in the city of San Diego. She is one chick covering a huge city in a lot of small dispatches. But I would argue she does a better job than the biggest, best reporters at the L.A. Times (although I did love the recent series of stories on how extraordinarily, beyond-your-worst nightmares, almost-defying the imagination BAD LAUSD really is.)

But here is the point: Andrew Donohue was inspiring! As I watch the world of journalism I was part of disappear before my eyes in the ugliest way possible, I watch what he is doing and I feel hope. There will be a new way. And it will be cool, and innovative, and wildly different.

There were moments when he spoke when I felt jealous. I want to be a news revolutionary. I want to experiment with the way stories are told.

When we went to Columbia, they told us that is what we would be. The writing for print newspapers was already on the wall. But I, through some quirk of fate, got one of the last great gigs in journalism. And I loved it!!! I loved my job. The experiences I had. The people I met. And most of all, the stories I got to write. It is a huge part of who I am. When I started the world of journalism still felt like the center of the world. In my heart, it still is.

Fifteen years have passed. I am astonished at how little the ideas of where journalism will go have changed. But now people are ready. We, as Columbia graduates, were unleashed into the world of journalism full of ideas of how things could change. We were excited. But that quickly changed as we ran into curmudgeonly older editors who wanted to do things the same old way. The world was changing, but they didn't want to. So we put behind us the revolutionary rhetoric of Columbia and adapted to the real world.

At VoiceofSanDiego.org they literally are trying things we tried at the LA Times--teaming reporters up with local news stations to put out more in depth stories and share information, and garner publicity. It was, as they like to say in the corporate world, a synergistic relationship.

But it couldn't work. The old reporters didn't want to go on air. LA Times reporters had attitude about working with TV reporters, who they regarded as lightweights and inferior journalists.

Donohue said he is doing that same thing with his reporters. But now it works. It is a new crop of people. There are no crusty old journalists who have to be convinced. His reporters are young, feisty, ready to go. And now the world is ready.

My friends were the last ones into the old regimes. A few years after I was hired it seemed the LA Times stopped hiring anybody young, and the newsroom just got older and older, and more and more grumpy and set in their ways.

But here come the young'uns.

I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, in which, among other things, he argues success is based on many things far beyond individual merit (despite our western ideology). Things like, culture, who your family is, the opportunities that come your way, and when you were born!!

At another time I would have been a world-class snowboarder and a news revolutionary.

Ah well.

Life is exciting. There is hope.

Journalism will live.

That is how I feel this morning!!