BRING ON THE RENAISSANCE!

Every year I take new inspiration from the Images & Voices of Hope Summit. But this year, I experienced not only an epiphany about the future of journalism, but a glimmer of real hope.

Until that “aha,” I admit to gritting my teeth over the state of journalism. I’ve been observing the self-destructive unraveling of newsrooms for more than a decade. The erosion of news values emerged in the nineties. I quit my CBS News job as an investigative reporter after it required correspondents to wear blue Nike jackets on air as part of an Olympic sponsorship deal. Instead, I went off the air to work at ABC News 20/20 as a senior producer. But there, on my very first day, I received a company-wide email from Michael Eisner, then CEO of the Disney Corporation, with the salutation: “Dear Fellow Cast Member.” I had imagined myself moving to a serious news operation. Instead I felt like I’d landed on a movie set posing as a newsroom.

I continued fretting over the erosion of news values as I watched my executive producer pour over “minute-by-minute” ratings, and pander to anything he could think of to keep viewers from switching channels. Since that time I’ve attended more conferences than I can remember about who will pay for the future of news. No one has come up with an answer.

Except in the short term, philanthropy has poured tens of millions of dollars into non-profit news experiments like ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting. While I applaud those good investments, it can’t be seen as a sustainable model for newsrooms of the future.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of journalists are losing their jobs across America. Papers are thinner. Airwaves are more cluttered with less information. The 24-hour news cycle is producing new positions I puzzle over like “Digital Correspondent Photo Journalist.” What kind of a job description is that? During this untidy transition into a new paradigm for information gathering, journalism failed to warn America about the reality of a war in Iraq or the financial meltdown on Wall Street. I’ve been wondering what don’t we know now that we need to know?

Then came my epiphany. The summit allowed me to rethink all this chaos and confusion and focus instead on the images and voices of hope. For the first time I absorbed the opportunity all around us. The deconstruction of journalism as we knew it, and the disruptive changes in how we get information, is really an invitation to a virtual media Renaissance.

With fresh eyes and ears I listened to Rob Baker’s explanation of how Ushahidi uses crowdsourcing and mapping tools to spread information. David Cohn’s Spot.us demonstration showed how willing the San Francisco community is to pay for homegrown watchdog reporting. And I learned that the gaming world is bigger than the film and music industry (combined!) and producing games that can illuminate and inspire. The Champlain College students presented their game to stop violence against women in collaboration with the UN, and we learned about Games for Change and peacemaking games in trouble spots.

The so-called “old media” hasn’t exactly disappeared. It’s getting better at using new social media tools to interact with readers and amplify their voices, as showcased by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Connie Schultz.

And one of the most promising realizations at the Summit was listening to a real cross-generational dialogue. There were professors of journalism from Florida, New York State and Vermont, along with more than a dozen young students full of passion and insights about the future of media.

I know more students are going into journalism and communications than ever before. I used to see that as a disaster, full stop. I worried about what would become of these dreamy-eyed journalism students who would graduate and find shrinking newsrooms firing, not hiring.

I’m comforted to see there’s a public interest spirit in these fresh new minds. They are fearless in braving the new digital frontier.

I’m done wringing my hands. I want to celebrate and get out of their way. I also want to roll up my sleeves and be a part of it.

Bring on the Renaissance!