“’I’ve been to many journalism conferences in recent years, and quite honestly, a lot of them are like attending a wake for someone who’s not quite dead yet,” said Michael Oreskes at the top of his keynote address to Online News Association Conference attendees. Oreskes noted that this conference is different.

Panic and crisis were certainly not the focus of Oreskes keynote address, though he mentioned this tendency in the news industry. Instead, Oreskes quickly delved into the the future of journalism and how it relates to the future of democracy.

“The panic is wrong,” Oreskes said. “The future of journalism is bright, but to get to that future, we have to face the challenge of today…. The challenge is substantial and how we solve it – how you solve it -- shape the future of journalism…. What you do will help shape the future of democracy as well.”

** Listen to Oreskes' speech.

On Newspapers
Oreskes noted “it is only partly even true that newspaper circulation is declining.” Although paid circulation is declining in North America and Europe, the proliferation of free dailies is impressive. He noted newspapers are not dying, and that people are still interested in news on print.

But, clearly, there’s also significant interest on the Web: “The passion with which our Web readers… respond to stories is one of many signs of the intensity to which people are following the news.”

The difference now is many people are not really interested in paying for that news.  “What is scaring our colleages in the news business – particularly in Europe and North America – is the business model crisis,” Oreskes said. The large news groups that have created journalism in the past are under a lot of pressure – they still need to produce quality, relevant and engaging content in a competitive and busy world, but many are facing doing this with fewer resources. 

“The more society is inundated with information, the more we need the services of journalism,” Oreskes said.

On Democracy
To preserve the news and democracy, the industry needs to reinvent itself to sustain quality journalism. This requires “listening” to entrepreneurs, bloggers and social networking people. “We must hear them and understand the message of change, but then we must combine that message with what we know,” he said.

How news outlets choose to shape the future of journalism is going to have a direct effect on democracy, Oreskes said, showing two charts to illustrate his point: The first chart showed a positive correlation between press freedom and income, and the second showed that as press freedom increases, corruption decreases.

“Countries with a free press are cleaner and wealthier. What we do makes a difference,” Oreskes said. And it can make a difference regardless of what platform journalists and readers use.

Though it’s true that the Web is good at allowing for niches and verticals (good for our consumers and good for business), it is still important for journalists to use the tools at hand to bring these factions together. A diversity of voices makes for better news stories, and also for better democracy.