Innovation Journalism in the Real, Virtual Worlds

The narrative of freedom is being told at Stanford University this week, in the same way that it’s been told across the world for months, as journalists from countries crumbling and developing have come to Palo Alto to stay a step head of the social-media curve.

There are probably only a handful of ink-stained print reporters in the room on the opening day of the Eighth Conference of Innovation Journalism, which might explain why everyone seems so happy. Eight people sit at a table, leisurely sipping coffee and passing glances among one another, and occasionally toward the front of the room. When their attention wanes, they go back to their Twitter feeds, tapping away on iPads, smart phones and laptops.

There are ten other tables of people in this filled-to-capacity ballroom, many from outside the United States. In recognition of current events, Stanford invited several journalists and bloggers who participated in the recent upheavals in the Middle East.

It is not a universal digital love fest, however. At this moment, everyone’s attention is directed toward a spectacled man slight of frame who peers over a podium and grins devilishly.

“You’re just an algorithm,” says David Burk of the international PR firm Fleishman-Hillard, who contends that the public’s access to media has become sharply limited by websites that track user interest and provide a small, customized sampling of information.

Despite the plethora of information, Burk says, “there is no journalism.” He concludes: “I hope I’m not controversial.”

Burk’s observations about news, search engines and social media elicit some chuckles, buoyed by optimism and weighted by anxiety. At the so-called “IJ8” confab, it’s as if the manifest destiny of the industry and the pitfalls of the great frontier have finally confronted one another.

Traditional media has never been so unnerved as it confronts reports about its insignificance and mortality. Simultaneously, the individual has never been so empowered.

Innovation takes many forms, which is why the three-day conference, which concludes Wednesday, is tackling not only the new generation of journalists who will be telling the stories of tomorrow, but the vast amount of avenues to be exploited.

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