More than a year ago, Brian Stelter had a story in The New York Times about how the social media generation takes it upon themselves to pass on the news they feel is worthwhile. The story contained a seminal quote from an unidentified college student that has become iconic of the new journalism evolving before our eyes. He said: “If the news is that important, it will find me.”

The line meant many things to many people. BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis and the Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram, a colleague here at Nieman, both wrote about it at the time.

That single line seemed to capture what is changing in journalism. The old model of sender (news organization) to receiver (audience) was eroding. With the interactive Web, people could be senders and receivers. News organizations could also be both. The lines were blurry and crossed. And if you wanted to capture those illusive young readers you needed to get that.

So why am I bringing all this up now, more than 18 months after the pivotal story — a lifetime in the Web world?

Read the rest of the post at the Nieman Journalism Lab.

A colleague of mine asked today: “Is blogging  journalism?”

She was helping her step-daughter write an essay, an assignment for a college ethics course. Two co-workers and I jumped in to answer the question to help my colleague assist her step-daughter.

I found the question compelling because it goes to the very heart of this battle between the old journalism and the new journalism. (The wired versus the tired, some people more clever than me call it.) So many journalists today seem to have intense anger  directed at blogs, which they see as a looming enemy that is trying to corrupt journalism.

But, in my opinion, blogging isn’t the threat to journalism — fear of change is. As Charles Darwin explains:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

(By the way, I wish I could take credit for knowing that quote. I can’t. I culled it from a blog comment on the Nieman Journalism Lab and verified it at Think.Exist.com.)

My answer to my colleague and to you is: “No, blogging isn’t journalism.”

Blogging is no more journalism than e-mail, Twitter or even newspapers or TV stations are journalism. They are tools — ways to disseminate information, ways to help people connect with their world.

In a PressThink post from 2004 that  rings true today, New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen describes bloggers as “speakers and writers of their own invention, at large in the public square. They’re participating in the great game of influence called public opinion. And they’re developing, mostly through labors of love, what I’ve called an extremely democratic media tool.”

Using that definition, which I like, blogging isn’t journalism, but journalists can blog. In fact, as a tool, blogging is particularly suited to journalism because it can help journalists connect and understand their readers better.

I believe the blogosphere is big enough to include journalist bloggers — now dubbed beatbloggers — nonjournalists, quasi-journalists, the proverbial guy sitting in his basement typing in his pajamas. I don’t fear the blog.

What I fear is the fear of change. What I fear is the fear of an open debate about the evolution of journalism. What I fear is journalists missing out on a bright future because they can’t imagine a world that is different than the one they know.

That’s what makes my blood run cold.

The way we practice journalism today is far from how it was practiced 200 years ago. A Wall Street Journal book review of “Scandal & Civility” explains that the American press of the 1790s stoked the flames of the post-revolutionary age with its bitter battles between emerging political parties. The press in those days was passionately partisan and mean-spirited, Marcus Daniels’ book contends.

I bring this history up not because I am not suggesting that we revert to the journalism of the early days of our nation. I bring this up not because I advocate we abandon the principles of today’s journalism and play ” fast and free with details”  — a phrase I borrow from one of my commenters — in the blogosphere.

I bring this up to make the point that the only constant is change. Journalism 50 years from now will be different than it is today in the same way that journalism 50 years ago was different than it was in the 1700s.

We can accept and embrace change and be part of the forces that shape what journalism evolves into. Or we can dig in our heels and insist that journalism never change, though it has been evolving for centuries.

Blogging has changed journalism, but it is not journalism. Blogging has given people, regular folks, a voice they didn’t really have in traditional media, or that they had in only a limited way.

Blogging is a medium, which has routines, the normal way of doing things that are evolving right now. In the same way news writing is less formal than academic writing, blogging is less formal than news writing. (And microblogs like Twitter are less formal than blogging.)

Blogging is a tool — one of many — that can help journalists and writers of all types connect with readers, communicate information and help people make sense of our increasingly complicated world. Blogging won’t solve everything, and in five, 10 or 20 years or sooner, something may replace it. And, hopefully, journalists will embrace the “something else,” too.

What do you think?

– Gina

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New York University journalism prof Jay Rosen tweeted a video today that I think is a must-see for any journalist trying to understand the “Internet revolution.“  Basically, he compared the static experience of watching TV to the interactive experience of connecting with people, news organizations and newsmakers through the Web.

I think calling this an Internet revolution is apt. The technology of the interactive Web gives readers the ability to find their own news, make their own news, reach whomever they want in a way. So the role of journalists must change as part of this revolution.

Yesterday, I gave you 10 journalism rules you can break on your blog.

Today,  with apologizes to Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” I invite you into two newsrooms: the newsroom of the past and the newsroom of the present (or future in some cases.)

Old Journalism: “We ran a two-line item on that fundraiser on page B-5 three weeks ago. We can’t run anything else on it. It’s old news.”

New Journalism: “Many may have missed the two-line item on page B-5, and people gather their news differently. Let’s put it on our blog, mention it in our calendar, add it the weekly print notebook. That way readers won’t have to hunt to find it.”

Old Journalism: “Some old bat called about this conference on getting kids to play outside. Sounds stupid. I told her it’s too late for us to do anything with it.”

New Journalism: “I asked the woman to write about what parents learned at the conference and post it on our public blog. I’ll let readers know by making a quick mention when I tease our online parents’ page in tomorrow’s paper.”

Old Journalism: “I’m heading to this town council meeting. Boy, will it be a snoozer. But, don’t worry, I’ll give you 18 inches if it kills me.”

New Journalism: “I’ll check in on the town meeting, and post an update to the blog. Don’t expect a story unless all hell breaks loose. Instead, I’ll double-team with the school board reporter on the hot artificial-turf vote. With both of us there, I can live blog it and tweet it, while she catches up with people to interview on video.”

Old Journalism: “Shoot, I’ve got to find people who are ticked off about the historic Venerable Day School for Students getting condemned. How will I find people who once went there? The school has been closed for 10 years.”

New Journalism: “Hey, I searched the school on Facebook and Linked In and found some alums. Maybe they’ll talk or know someone who will.”

Old Journalism: “We’re out of room on the briefs column again. Guess that means we kill the item referring to your big contest on the Web. Hey, the paper comes first.”

New Journalism: “We’re short on space, so we’ll need to trim the refer to your blog contest. But let’s get it in. The last thing we should kill these days is anything that connects our readers to the Web.”

Old Journalism: “Yeah, 300 people commented online about the dairy princess being named for the first time. But that’s not news. What do readers know? We’re not going to do anything more with that.”

New Journalism: “Why not publish a sampling of the comments with a picture of the new princess. Sure, it’s not my cup of tea, but we’re serving readers, not each other.”

– Gina

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Today’s short takes focus on a common theme: improving journalism. Enjoy.

Improving newspaper Web sites: Scooping the News offers five tips for make newspaper Web sites better: communicate with readers, link out, display readers’ comments prominently; explain more about the writers behind the stories and blogs; and don’t worry so much about design.

I really like the idea of telling readers more about the writers — not just a quick bio, but their background, personal data. That kind of background information is important in the blogosphere; it should be important on news Web sites. Also, I believe that while a well-designed Web site is important, worrying about every little design detail is meaningless if the content stinks.

How to improve journalism in three questions: Jackie Hai at Convergence Commons attended the  Journalism That Matters conference hosted by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., earlier this month and offered three blogs posts about what Poynter folks told her could help journalism. Each question has a video answer. (Neat format, I thought.) Here they are:

1. “How have new tools and technologies enhanced your ability to report and perform the traditions of journalism?”
2. “What do you think is the role of the journalist in the new network of information and community of users we’re moving toward?”
3. (Disclosure alert: Jackie asked for possible questions on Twitter, and this one came from me.) “If they could give only one piece of advice to journalist/journalist students in today’s media climate, what would it be?”

Editing the Web: New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen vividly explains in a Los Angeles Times story how he uses Twitter to sort through the “noise” on the Web by digesting tweets of the 550 journalists, analyst and news outlets he follows on Twitter:  “I’ve hand-built my own tipster network. It’s editing the Web for me in real time.”

I love this concept, and I think it has potential for some many aspects of journalism. A growing part of journalists’ jobs, I believe, will be helping readers sort through the ever-growing body of voices and information on the Web. I’ve noticed blogs start to run “best tweets of the week” posts. Newspapers have always strived to give readers the hot stories of that day. But what if they were plugged in enough to applications, such as Twitter, to be almost a search engine for readers. They find the buzz, so readers don’t have to.

Who is talking about you? Old Media New Tricks highlighted a Twitter tool that I find very useful for newspaper Web sites. It’s called Back Tweets, and it helps you find out who is tweeting links from your newspaper’s Web site or blogs.

Other sites, such as Retweetist, will tell you if your tweet has been retweeted. Back Tweets tells you who is tweeting your site as well as retweeting you or other staffers.

To me, that’s valuable because if readers are taking it upon themselves to tweet your news story or blog post, wow. You’ve made it. You’ve reached them with something so important to them that they want to share it with people they care about. In that way, readers become part of promoting the newspaper’s Web site, and the newspaper becomes part of the readers’ existing network.