To stay relevant, journalists need to 'flee into the future'

Newspapers maybe on the way out, but news isn’t.

The shape news takes, not only the way it’s delivered but what actually constitutes news, is changing.

Those were two of the major takeaways from the first day of the the Online News Association 2009 conference going on in San Francisco.

A sold-out crowd of more than 650 reporters and editors from around the world – mostly the U.S. but also from Canada, Colombia, Norway and elsewhere – packed into meeting rooms at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel to heard Twitter CEO Ev Williams, tech radio host Leo LaPorte, essayist Paul Saffo and others share their views of what lies ahead for the news business and the technology that’s used to produce it.

Because whether you like it or not, the news business is turning into the technology business. That was blindly apparent in a lightening-fast 60 minute presentation on tech trends journalists should know about given by media consultant Amy Webb, head of Webbmedia in Washington D.C. Twitter, Facebook, blogs – it’s just the beginning of a landslide of widgets, apps and other tools reporters, editors and Website managers can and are using to better bring information to their constituencies, and vice versa.

Twitter’s Williams didn’t share much about the little company with the big social network the assembled crowd didn’t already know, with a few exceptions. One: think of Twitter as a network, not a destination, Williams said. In the future, services will be built on top of Twitter so people won’t necessarily realize that it’s what they’re using. Another item of interest for anybody who uses Twitter now: the service is beta testing a lists function that will make it easier to segment groups of people you follow. If anyone reading this knows how to get me into that beta, ping me – I will trade 15 minutes of free social media or editorial consulting in return.

LaPorte, the tech radio guy, has been around the tech industry since the early days of the personal computer. He started out as a radio news reader and wound his way through various radio- and tech-related ventures before starting a network of tech radio show podcasts including This Week in Tech. LaPorte’s story should hearten aspiring news entrepreneurs; after years of pitching shows to radio, TV and publishing companies, LaPorte used the advent of relatively cheap podcasting technology to do his own thing, and it’s paying off. He’s currently pulling in approximately $1.5 million a year in advertising for shows that cost $350,00 to produce (which he does with a staff of seven).

Saffo, a Stanford professor who’s spent his career studying and talking about technological innovation, told the crowd to embrace the uncertainty they face as the media business changes. “The waves of creative destruction are tunneling through every corner of your industry,” Saffo said. “The only strategy is to flee into the future as fast as you can, and avoid the mistakes of the incumbents.”

Stay tuned for more from the Online News Association conference.