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Our impoverished national conversation on guns appears to have a new casualty: public information.

The latest victim is the Bangor Daily News in Bangor, Me., whose request for the names of concealed gun permit holders – a public record in Maine – unleashed a firestorm. The paper withdrew its request.

The reason this sounds familiar, of course, is because of the controversy last December, when a White Plains, N.Y., newspaper (the Journal News) published the names and addresses of handgun permit holders. That newspaper, too, ended up succumbing to the outrage directed against it.

During the course of the latter controversy, the newspaper’s publisher, Janet Hasson, had this to say: “New York residents have the right to own guns with a permit and they also have a right to access public information.” Makes good sense to me. But not to the many public officials who, in each of these cases, rushed to make the information private.

Citizens who are reassured by this stampede to withhold information should consider: Secrecy is almost always the first instinct of politicians. That previous lawmakers have made a determination that the name and address of any handgun permit holder in New York State “shall be a public record” is evidence of an uncommonly enlightened understanding that certain kinds of information should be in the public domain. Why today’s readiness to deny that it is in the public interest for such information to be available? We seem to be in one of those recurring periods in our society when concerns about privacy regularly trump an allegiance to informed self-governance. Fear for loss of privacy is eminently reasonable. But we can’t afford to forget the cost of ignorance.

Nobody understood this better than Daniel Patrick Moynihan. As a New York senator, he made these remarks at a Hearing on Government Secrecy in 1997:

“Secrecy is the ultimate mode of regulation; the citizen does not even know that he or she is being regulated! It is a parallel regulatory regime with a far greater potential for damage if it malfunctions.”

The hearty appetite of leadership for secrecy is certainly exemplified by our current president. Barack Obama’s record on open information is shameful.

“Obama is the sixth administration that’s been in office since I’ve been doing Freedom of Information Act work. … It’s kind of shocking to me to say this, but of the six, this administration is the worst on FOIA issues. The worst. There’s just no question about it,” Katherine Meyer, a Washington lawyer who’s been filing FOIA cases since 1978, told POLITICO. “This administration is raising one barrier after another. … It’s gotten to the point where I’m stunned — I’m really stunned.”

So, who is out there to fight on the public’s behalf against the seduction of secrecy?

When I went to work for The Des Moines Register in 1981, we had three full-time media lawyers. They did all kinds of work for the company, but one task they undertook tirelessly was the fight for freedom of information across the state. As the leading member of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, the Register worked in alliance with librarians, lawyers, educators and others to keep meetings open and records available to the public. This used to be true, in varying degrees, across the country. Now, a media lawyer in a newsroom is a rare thing indeed — and so is the assertive protection of public information. When people ask me what we are missing as newspapers relentlessly lose their footing, I think of many good answers. This may be the best.

We see the effect of this weakened commitment to fighting secrecy even at our strongest newspapers. One example lies in the long skirmish between The New York Times and Congress on President Obama’s terrorist “kill list” and our nation’s use of drones. The pattern is discouraging: The Times shares leaked information; Congress calls for an investigation. Unsettling as it is that public officials flail at the messenger instead of demanding more information, it’s troubling too to realize that the Times may be less vigorous than we’d hope in its fight to make information public. As Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote on Feb. 9:

“The real threat to national security is a government operating in secret and accountable to no one, with watchdogs that are too willing to muzzle themselves.

Top Times editors say that they are deeply committed to informing the public, but that they believe it’s only responsible to listen when government officials make a request. And, they emphasize, they often say no. Fair enough. But the bar should be set very high for agreeing to honor those requests. This one didn’t clear that bar.

What’s missing in the dark and ever-expanding world of drone warfare is a big helping of accountability, served up in the bright light of day.”

If journalists, however besieged and reduced in number, are essential as champions of open government, how did they stand on the question of newspapers seeking to bring gun-permit ownership to public light? The answer disturbed and surprised me. This comment from the Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins was typical: “Just because information is public does not make it newsworthy. People own guns for a wide range of law-abiding reasons. If you are not breaking the law, there is no compelling reason to publish the data.”

But there are countless compelling reasons to publish data that have nothing to do with breaking the law. Some newspapers bravely (and wisely) publish the salaries of all public officials, as well as top salaries of executives of businesses in their communities. Some recently have published teachers’ classroom ratings. This kind of information is:

1. always terrifically well-read, and
2. guaranteed to provoke outrage.

“I’ll be robbed,” say the well-paid officials. “This isn’t a fair way to judge,” say the teachers. These predictable reactions do not negate the value of putting information into the hands of people to enable them to know themselves and their communities, to lead fuller lives and be better citizens.

When I was editor of The Des Moines Register, we were accustomed to publishing the names and addresses of those who had just given birth. Neighbors could learn that Jane and John down the street had a new baby girl, say, and drop by with a card. When a controversy arose over the kidnapping of a baby, health officials responded by demanding that the public records be closed down. It soon emerged that the few known kidnappings had been from hospitals, not from homes. The addresses remained unavailable.

When I first went to work at The New York Times, AIDS was not listed as a cause of death in obituaries. It was thought – as cancer had been long before it – to carry a stigma that would disgrace the dead. Thus readers were left scratching their heads over all the young men dying of “pneumonia.” Only when the accurate cause of death began to be used could New Yorkers understand that the faceless “plague” long so foreign-sounding to them was in fact the thing responsible for the death of that gifted artist they knew. Thus does accurate information shape public attitudes.

I used to give speeches with titles such as “What You Don’t Know WILL Hurt You.” Once, at Stanford, I spoke about the responsibility of the press to print the facts, no matter how painful that might be for some. I mentioned the need to cite suicide as the cause of death. A man scolded me during the Q-and-A, saying he was glad his local editor was more humane; he had simply ignored the cause of death in his son’s recent obituary. Afterward, a young woman came up to me and said: “I knew that boy. And when he died, we were all trying to figure out what had happened. What we learned instead was that adults don’t like to talk about painful things, and that you can’t count on newspapers to print the truth.”

So why didn’t journalists champion the side of openness in the post-Newtown Journal News story? I wondered this when I heard NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik say on KPCC in Los Angeles that the paper’s work was reminiscent of a “name and shame” effort by media outlets to identify sexual offenders. Following up with Folkenflik (who ended up adding me to an All Things Considered story on the matter that evening) and with others, I concluded that journalists had three primary critiques:

• Citizens should not be given data without context.
• Making the data public invaded the privacy of gun permit holders and made them feel unsafe.
• This was a crusade on behalf of gun control.

All of these seem misguided to me. Analysis can surely be valuable, but providing “granular” data without context is not necessarily irresponsible. This raw data from public records is surely something that most people would find interesting (and many apparently did – the newspaper said the data had been viewed nearly 1.2 million times before it was taken down). Extracting generic trends does not replace the value of neighborhood-by-neighborhood understanding of specific details. To think that only journalists can handle such information is not only elitist but sorely out of touch with the times.

What the enormous national response to the map revealed is that we don’t really have on the individual level much understanding at all about who does own guns. The Journal News map showed how ordinary it is. This new understanding could lead to a lot of different things. “Wow. I’m amazed how common this is among my neighbors, whom I know and respect. Should I reconsider my kneejerk reaction?” Or, “My neighbors have guns. Do I feel differently about my kids being in their house?” In either case, it removes blinders. This is the kind of thing that can change debates, putting information out there that helps people grapple with a situation instead of just grinding out the same old arguments.

As for the publication’s making people feel like criminals: In whose eyes? Somehow to publish that information, it was assumed, is to imply that gun owners are doing a bad thing or are dangerous. Why? I know that conservative websites charged that this was the newspaper’s intent, but why would a journalist have seen it that way? Indeed, why would gun permit holders themselves feel so outraged? Gun ownership is legal. Gun owners stress that it is desirable. People press for “open carry” laws. Why are some suddenly angry to have it known that they have a permit?

Finally, the notion that publishing this kind of information could only be a crusade for gun control confounds me. Why assume this? Who can predict how it will change the debate? It could lead to an utter “normalization” of gun ownership. It could lead to a fueling of gun-control efforts. Who is to say where more information – and a greater understanding of one’s surroundings – will lead? One study in the wake of the 2008 Memphis Commercial Appeal publication of zip codes of gun owners found that burglaries declined 18 percent in ZIP codes with the most concealed-carry permits.

Why would we (particularly journalists) assert that the paper has taken a stance by the mere act of publication? Why not say instead that it has trusted the public with public information? That it has made public information accessible to people who aren’t likely to make the effort to get it themselves? Why aren’t journalists pushing back against the notion that we must not trust people to know how to handle information given to them?

Some asserted that it was the timing of the publication at this charged moment that conveyed the implication of guilt, and they do have a point. So here’s my prescription: What this paper did is expose how little we all understand, on a human-to-human level, the reality of gun ownership. Bravo for that! Let every newspaper in the country publish records on gun permits to the extent available to them in their state. Don’t associate it with a madman’s act. Just put it out there because you know the public can benefit: These are the facts on the ground. Let’s see where they lead. (Unfortunately, I fear that few publishers have the courage to withstand the criticism. Which is why those who understand the power of public information must persevere in pointing out the reasons it is so essential, rather than joining the horde of critics.) PBS’s MediaShift has compiled an intriguing compendium of innovative coverage of the issue, relying on data and social media. Perhaps it could help inspire editors to find strength in numbers and join this national effort.

This project would change our dreary stuck-in-a-rut national conversation about guns. I don’t know how, but I guarantee it would change it. When we hide from facts, we make poor public policy – or avoid making any policy at all. The human aversion to difficult truths, the eagerness of newspaper editors and publishers to avoid infuriating people and the readiness of public officials to resort to secrecy make a fine recipe for ignorance.

How dispiriting then, that journalists – who by necessity must be on the forefront of defending open information, however uncomfortable a role that may be – have given up their taste for this fight. This speaks of a craft that is losing its bearings – another lamentable effect, perhaps, of the weakening of legacy media.

Privacy is an enormously worrisome issue. Context often makes data more useful. No individual newspaper’s project is beyond criticism. But we must not allow these truths to blind us to the importance of an accurate picture of our society. Many citizens cheer on the public officials who respond to controversy by taking information out of the public domain. But this is not “protecting” the public. It is blinding the public — helping the public keep its head in the sand.

Moynihan’s excellent book, “Secrecy: The American Experience,” concludes this way:

“A case can be made that secrecy is for losers, for people who don’t know how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular and singularly American advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in the mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of cold war era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness, which is already upon us.”

He wrote that in 1998. Fifteen years later, we are a long way from learning the lesson.

A key figure in the discussion is the Knight Foundation’s Eric Newton, who headed a group of foundation leaders calling on America’s university presidents to put “top professionals in residence” and to focus on applied research. Newton had previously challenged journalism schools to consider a new degree structure to “put professionals on par with scholars and give the highest credentials to people who are both.” This Newton post offers a good sampling of the discussion to date.

Another leading voice is the Poynter Institute’s Howard Finberg, whose speech in Europe in June helped launch the debate. Finberg followed with a good summation.

It’s a lively discussion. Lots of truths have been spoken, lots of silly things said, and many topics worthy of debate have been raised. Here are a few points I think need adding (or stressing more than they have been to date):

It’s about the PUBLIC. This is after all the POINT of journalism. These are the people for whom it all exists. Remembering this can help us focus on the most critical questions: How do we work most effectively with the folks who are now creating the journalism with us? How do we best engage citizens? At the heart of this debate, we must place their needs and wants -– indeed, the ways in which they are actively reinventing journalism even as we discourse about it. The current discussion seems to harbor the notion that the debate is primarily between the academy and the “industry” –- an idea that is sorely out of date.

There is no end-point. No matter how effectively we debate this, no matter how well we “solve” the questions confronting us, there’ll be no stasis. These conversations have been going on for a good while (here’s a summation of one from two years ago at AEJMC) and they’ll go on for a long time more. Change is our new reality, and it isn’t going away. As Google’s Richard Gingras said at AEJMC, “How can we create work cultures of constant innovation?” (His questions at the end of the speech are terrific thought-provokers.)

Indeed, Gingras had a great closer — especially for an audience that hasn’t exactly been marked over the years by revolutionary zeal: “The success of journalism’s future … can only be assured to the extent that each and every person in this room and beyond helps generate the excitement, the passion, and the creativity to make it so.”

Research must be tuned up to match the urgent need for informed change. Insults are always traded on this question between academics and practitioners, but the truth is the best stuff often comes from a union of the two. Giving pros a chance to be part of the academy produces all kinds of wonderful work. Last year we brought veteran editor Melanie Sill to Annenberg, steeped her in academic life for one semester, and she turned out a terrific “Case for Open Journalism Now: A New Framework for Informing Communities.” Same thing happened with David Westphal a couple of years earlier, who turned out richly helpful (OK, he’s my husband; it’s still true), reports on foundation funding and the role of government.

Similarly, Columbia put Len Downie and Michael Schudson together on “The Reconstruction of American Journalism” and followed that with a fine “The Story So Far: What we know about the business of digital journalism.”

Lots of good work is happening in the more traditional academic ways, as well. Here are two examples, thanks to Carrie Brown-Smith. AEJMC president Linda Steiner’s contribution to the debate correctly points us to AEJMC’s “Research you can use,” a project I was involved in many years ago when I first came over to the academy from the practice, but which has never quite caught on.

That’s in part because of the pace at which academics embrace (or don’t embrace) change. Carrie Brown-Smith of the University of Memphis comments wryly, following the Finberg posting, on the posturing and “hand-ringing by mostly well-established senior faculty.” She adds: “We just need to get off our duff and make an effort to use the unprecedented array of tools at our disposal to connect with professionals, such as blogs and social media.”

Still, it remains true that key questions cry out for thoughtful research while too many scholars toil endlessly over arcana. What might we do to encourage web media to fill more reporting gaps? How can we better understand how people use online information? Are we seeing any impact from our student’s greatly increased understanding of the “business” side of journalism? How might we assess empirically the decline of the quality of journalism and its impact –- if indeed we can establish with certainty that there is one?

We must redefine our “market.” We know that the quality of journalism depends on the quality of the demand for it. How might we play a greater role in media literacy? We know that the academy seems to be experiencing some of the disruption that has hit so many media institutions. What if we put these two facts together and started serving more and more of the public in smaller chunks of time (and money)?. Finberg cites a great example: UC Davis is experimenting with “digital badge” programs that can “measure core competences rather than the standard three-credit course.”

We can build on the far richer connection that now exists between the academy and journalism professionals. Oddly, the current debate has several references to an increase in the long-lamented distance between the academy and the practice. Finberg did a survey and found that 95 percent of academics thought a journalism degree was vital to “understanding the value of journalism,” while only 56 percent of professionals agreed. That sounds remarkably promising to me. Given the history of this relationship, I’d be amazed if more than a quarter of practitioners would have agreed with the academics on their positive assessment (of their own work, mind you) a decade ago. We are seeing evidence every day that media professionals want to work with journalism schools. In fact they are doing so in ever-increasing numbers of partnerships and collaborations. Good things can come of this.

We need to be the labs that experiment and test new techniques and share lessons about best practices. We at USC Annenberg are lucky enough to be one of three testbeds (along with CUNY and UNC) for Geanne Rosenberg’s terrific project on best legal practices. Like many other schools, we are creating new apps and new methods of journalism in our Annenberg Innovation Lab and our Mobile News Incubator. It’s not easy or neat. I got a call as I was writing this post about yet another intellectual property question we don’t seem to have given proper attention to. But that’s exactly the kind of challenge we ought to be confronting — and helping the practice deal with.

Diversity! My final point brings us back to the beginning. This is about the public. And the entire public is not old, white and male (I can say that, since I’m two of those). We can’t serve, be partners with, or even begin to understand a diverse population –- if we’re not one. And we mostly are not. A remarkable number of discussions on the future of journalism –- the FUTURE of journalism –- are conducted by groups that look like the Kiwanis club of Peoria in 1950. This won’t do. When we hire and put into place people who look like the future and are excited about its promise — that is when rebooting ceases to be a conversation and becomes reality. The biggest change we need in journalism schools is an ever-changing cast of characters.

These are not your typical journalism M.A. programs. (Though we also have an excellent one of those.) In this innovative nine-month program, we have a different aim: As journalism is reinventing itself, we are reinventing the journalism academy, here in this incomparable learning laboratory of the future, Los Angeles.

Consequently, your fellow students will be atypical, as well. The remarkably interesting group we assemble each year brings artists and arts journalists of every stripe together with journalists eager to go deep into science, demographics, education, religion and a feast of other disciplines. Their work has appeared in the legacy media as well as Neon Tommy, Huffington Post and other online sites.

You will design your own curriculum, ranging across the offerings of this vibrant and richly interdisciplinary University. Along the way, we throw in some key enhancements: The updates in digital skills and social networking, an entrepreneurial mindset and a sense of the emerging lay of the journalistic land that will equip you to be a leader in journalism’s reinvention. As online journalists, you have a head start on this journey. Together, we’ll proceed further.

We have hired some of the best minds in the new-media world and melded them with our distinguished journalism faculty. And all of this exists within the exciting environment of a full-service School of Communication and Journalism that values the creation of new knowledge about this age-old craft we call journalism, as well as the many different ways we can now serve the public’s information needs. And, assuming you can carve out the time, you can participate in Annenberg’s news outlets on every platform and take advantage of the unparalleled diversity of experiences that Southern California offers.

I surely hope you will consider joining us here at Annenberg, where journalism’s future is looking brighter every day. Please visit our website for application guidelines.

Recognizing the critically important role journalism plays in a democratic society and USC’s role as a leading institution for educating and training journalists, the University of Southern California Board of Trustees has voted to change the name of the USC Annenberg School for Communication to the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.

We have grown accustomed to daily reminders that journalism is in a period of great unsettlement. What we recognize here on this special day, by adding “journalism” to the Annenberg School’s name, is that this is also – and primarily – a period of enormous promise. We have asserted, here together, that journalism is a subject worthy of the attention of a great University.

And surely it is, particularly at this moment. For, even as its traditional models collapse, journalism is being reinvented. It is being reborn in new and exciting ways every day. And with this name change, we make clear the vital roles that Annenberg has played, and WILL play, in that reinvention.

First of all, we are, in collaboration with our colleagues in the School of Communication and throughout the University, doing research and deep reporting to enrich the debate that will contribute to shaping tomorrow’s journalism: Research about the new roles of the public, the policies of governments at all levels, the innovations occurring around the world, the emerging models of community and national and international news and the potential for new economic models to support information in the public interest.

Second, in our own J-school version of R and D – researching and DOING – we are increasingly serving the information needs of our communities. as legacy media’s resources so rapidly shrink. In our news outlets — Annenberg Television News, Annenberg Radio News, NeonTommy: the voice of Annenberg Digital News and our documentary program Impact, as well as Intersections: The South Los Angeles Report and Spot.us, a community-supported investigative journalism site that we are just rolling out in L.A. – in all of these, our students and faculty are putting into practice the journalistic excellence we teach.

And teaching, of course, is the heart of our promise of contribution to journalism’s future. In our classrooms and learning laboratories, and in the fine work of our centers for health reporting, arts reporting and digital news, we are ensuring that the enduring values of journalism will find their way wherever the public attention goes, from old media to new, into the worlds of Twitter and Facebook and their successors, through multi-platform storytelling, with a spirit of invention and entrepreneurialism that will enable Annenberg graduates to succeed and to lead in this arena so essential to democracy and to a life well-lived.

Many of the 30 advisors who gathered this morning to commiserate and trade solutions said they were ditching the print edition to go online only. One advisor said she was seeking “more of a social engagement site. You can actually get them to read things if you go online.”

Part of what’s driving them there is of course money. One advisor said his entire budget (it had been only $497) had been eliminated, which “forces my students to be entrepreneurial.” Tales of entrepreneurialism around the table raised everything from driver-school and tuxedo-rental ad sales to covert candy sales. Some noted they had no budget to lose. A high school neighboring Annenberg’s central-city campus said her students go to Hollywood television tapings, serving as audience members at $15 a head (transportation provided) to fund their journalism.

As for censorship, an advisor who said she is already under prior review added that she has trouble pleading her case with her principal, who sneers, “whaddya gonna do, plead ‘freedom of speech?’” when she defends her students’ work. (“At least he’s heard of the First Amendment,” a colleague responded wryly.) Said another: “I’m the only teacher on campus who, if I do my job, will be in trouble.”

One advisor said she was having so much trouble with the principal that she found herself breaking into tears for a week. “I thought that I’d LOVE to get rid of journalism,” she said, but knew it wasn’t true: “It’s so important that the kids have a voice.”

The day opened with recognition of former high school journalism advisor Jan Ewell, who was instrumental in winning passing of a bill signed into law in late September that will prevent school administrators from punishing teachers for their students’ exercise of First Amendment rights. At the panel discussion, which followed that ceremony, teachers of Ewell’s long experience joined novices to tell of newspapers that had been shut down but now were returning to life, some of them paid for by the advisors themselves. They shared stories of ASNE’s high school journalism advisors’ workshop, counsel from the the Student Press Law Center, and online chat rooms that feel like faculty lounges peopled only by journalism advisors.

Amid the travails, the work, it seems, is still worth it. “It’s addicting,” one man said of journalism advising. “Once you start start doing it…”

Annenberg’s twice-yearly High School Journalism Day gatherings are funded by the Los Angeles Times, and organized by Diane Guthman.

“I think we’re fooling ourselves a little bit in how much change is needed,” Michael Skoler of American Public Media said. The needed transformation lies well beyond the use of new tools. “People expect to share information.” But that goes against our ethos – getting the scoop, keeping it exclusive. Nor does allowing people to participate in – not just respond to — our work come naturally. “Deep in our souls we feel like that’s dumbing down our journalism. I would argue that it’s smartening it up.”

Mara Schiavocampo, NBC’s digital correspondent, agreed. When the crowd’s complaints about the low quality of public contributions confirmed Skoler’s dumbing-down assumption, Schiavocampo stressed, “More voices is a good thing for all of us. We just need to make sure we all operate by the same rules. It’s a journalism of partnership.”

What drove Schiavocampo to her current ultra-multi-media whirlwind professional life was a desire to “produce media the way I consumed media.” For others attempting this, she warns, authenticity is extremely important. Too often, “Big media are the parents pulling on ripped jeans and going to rock concerts in order to be cool.”

Joshua Benton, director of the new Nieman Journalism Lab, urged the crowd toward an awareness of just how many folks are putting useful information out there. Of the 600 RSS feeds a day that he reads, fewer than 10 percent are by journalists.

We need to be asking, “What can we do to connect with those people?” True, he noted, “It’s a difficult thing to create a healthy online community.” We need to set guidelines, make them clear, and follow them. And the journalists have to be involved in the comments. “It’s easy to lash out at someone who isn’t human to you.” Given the relationship we’ve trained people to expect of us, “we have to rehumanize ourselves.”

And then this last comment, which must have gripped me so much amid this crowd of worthies that I somehow failed to note its author: “The future just happened. It destroyed the priesthoods.”

The famed laissez-faire economist held that business and mission don’t go together, according to Adlai Wertman, of USC’s Marshall School of Business. “And I’m not sure I disagree with him,” Wertman told students and faculty at this week’s USC Annenberg Director’s Forum. “I’m not sure I trust business with anything else.”

This throws a complex light on the collapse of the conventional economic model for journalism – which has consisted of trusting business with this mission so dear to our (and, we hope, the nation’s) hearts. That collapse feels no less catastrophic to those who are losing their jobs, nor to faithful news consumers who see shrinking newspapers and dumbed-down newscasts. And it’s still deeply worrisome when you think about who will have the power, guts and access to go up against big government and big business, so as to keep us informed about the nation and the world.

Still, it is fitting to be reminded of the ways in which the economic model has distorted the mission.

Consider the view of Wertman, who spent 18 years as an investment banker and another seven devoted to helping the homeless (“The first two or three ‘From Wall Street to Skid Row’ headlines were clever, but the 18th or 19th??!!”) before coming to the academy. Confronted with the nation’s inability to resolve the many ills confronting it, Wertman told the Journalism School: “I think it’s all your fault. In my view, the political world follows journalism.” And journalism has led down the wrong paths in our failure to give attention to poverty, homelessness and other weighty and complex issues.

The profit model may be responsible for much of the problem: “There is a major difference between a mission-driven business and a business,” he said. Profit-seeking companies “quickly go from no social mission to no social responsibility.” The result has been, in Wertman’s opinion, a distorted notion of “what the public wants” when it comes to journalism, and a terribly inadequate news diet for a self-governing people.

So what’s to be done?

“If you are asking, ‘Can I create new models that are mission-driven in journalism, and make a living?’ Absolutely!” said Wertman. Start with the focus, he advised. The new models that seem to do well are very targeted.

“Donors want to know, ‘What are you going to effect?’ That’s the hardest part. Once you figure out your mission, you can do anything. And I teach, the narrower the mission, the better.”

For some of us, then, the problem may actually be that what we are worried about is saving journalism. Wrong focus.

“Take the mission away from journalism and think more about journalism as a tool: We care about poverty, and how could we use journalism as a tool to make a difference,” he said.

If that sounds like advocacy said Wertman, it needn’t be. You persuade your donors (and consumers) that a full, fair, balanced and proportional picture of the issue is the best way to get people interested and informed, and thus to bring about action.

Mission accomplished: A new model for effective journalism – albeit not one of interest to Wall Street. But maybe enough to keep you off Skid Row.

It’s an interesting effort, for sure. Since 2005 the Sun has been a small daily inserted into the rival newspaper (operating under a JOA), plus a vibrantly innovative website. The print paper is innovative, too: Typically eight attractive, ad-free pages, it focuses on the interpretative, the entrepreneurial, the investigative. “We get to think the bigger thoughts,” said Heikes, who at one point entertained the notion of coming to Los Angeles to do an all-Web paper to compete with the embattled Times.

Given the uniqueness of Vegas and the rarity of the JOA model, it’s unclear how much of the Sun’s experience is exportable. And, oh yes, it’s all rather richly subsidized by a buoyantly happy billionaire publisher, Brian Greenspun, who exults, in a video: “My God, this is the future of journalism. It’s here right now, and we did it!” He’s hoping the lines will cross in favor of profitability by 2012, but in the meantime, says Heikes, Greenspun “is having fun. He’s 62 years old, and he looks like he’s 14.”

Well, surely that part is exportable: Any other billionaires out there who’d like to try this?

Do what digital pioneer and entrepreneur Elizabeth Osder has done: “I always tried to be about what I get to do rather than where I get to do it.”

But the economic models just aren’t working for newspapers online, lamented one student attending USC Annenberg School of Journalism Director’s Forum.

Not true, said Osder, fresh off consulting work with Tina Brown’s just-launched “The Daily Beast.” Plenty of people are making plenty of money online. (As if in confirmation, David Westphal, Annenberg’s executive in residence, noted that McClatchy right now makes more money online than it costs to pay all the editors and publishers in the company.)

Here’s how to think about it, Osder told the group:

“Start with the impact you want to have. Figure out how what audience you need to assemble to have that impact. And what kind of content is needed to do that. Then price it out: How much money do you need to do it?”

“If I wanted to do that, I’d have gone to Marshall (USC’s business school),” a student groaned in reply. Understandable, said Osder, but having to do this kind of thinking brings a needed discipline. “It forces you to be relevant and useful versus arrogant and entitled.”

Hmmmm. This nostalgia we’re feeling: Is it for The Wall, which guaranteed the purity of our journalism — or for the folks on the other side of it, who had to worry about whether it was read and paid for?

I am the new director of the Annenberg School of Journalism at the University of Southern California. My four decades in newspapering may have helped land me in this position, but it’s my gusto for the future of information in the public interest that defines my work now. We hope — here at Annenberg, and here at OJR in its new Knight Digital Media Center home — to help figure out what it is about journalism that is most important to carry forward. And, we hope to do what we can to ensure that it does indeed GET carried forward.

Those are no small goals, and they will require the lively participation of new contributors to OJR, as well as the continued enthusiasm of old OJR hands.

This website will be different from the “old” OJR in a couple of ways: First, as you’ll see, it is integrated with the Knight Digital Media Center. Also, we want to ensure that Annenberg faculty, friends and students play an important role in the conversation. What remains the same is that Robert Niles (called by The Guardian “one of America’s top media academics,” and we quite agree) will be around. We also will eagerly continue to accept comments and suggestions from readers. And the archives will remain in place.

We propose four main areas of discussion:

1. Reporting and writing in a conversational environment. How can, and should, we report the news when publications are now a two-way conversation, instead of a single-direction monologue?

2. Investigative reporting in the Internet era. How can news organizations, and individual journalists, harness the power of modern computing and networking (including crowdsourcing) to investigate public data?

3. Entrepreneurial journalism. The old business model for news is broken. How do we prepare journalists to develop new ones?

4. “Guerilla-marketing” the news. This builds from topics 1 and 3, and addresses how journalists ought to be thinking about making their content “viral,” optimizing for search engines and using promotional techniques to draw audience to their content, at minimal financial expense.

We’ll be publishing twice a week on the “new” OJR, on Wednesdays and on Fridays. But you will also find fresh posts on other topics other days of the week on the KDMC website, http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/.

Robert will be writing the next piece, on Friday. See you after that.