Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the future of journalism here in Connecticut. Back on September 14th, Colin McEnroe talked about the decline in local news coverage, and asked about whether or not local bloggers are filling the gap. Then, on September 22nd, Tom Brokaw spoke about the Future of Journalism at Yale. Two days later, Where We Live ran a segment on Hyperlocal journalism, which was followed by a panel, “Hyperlocal: News In My Back Yard." sponsored by PRSA-CT.

These discussions have become more common and fairly predictable. No, bloggers haven’t filled in the gaps. Some will say that they aren’t even journalists, and the discussion will turn towards how journalists can make a living these days.

I do agree that bloggers have not done enough to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional news organization and I have a few suggestions for bloggers interested in this. First, for the time being forget about whether some representative of the waning wing of the fourth estate considers you a compatriot. Get out and cover the news. Cover the stuff that others aren’t covering. Go to local school board meetings and provide information that doesn’t show up in your local papers and that you can’t get simply by watching the recordings of the meetings on your local government access channel.

Beyond that, go out and get some training in journalism. I strongly recommend courses that the Investigative Reporters and Editors provide. In their commitment to investigative reporting, they welcome bloggers to their organization and their classes. While you’re at it be sure to take the online course Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers at NewsU developed by the Media Bloggers Association, the Citizen Media Law Project and the Center for Citizen Media. It is a free online course that I believe everyone doing online media should take. Then, get out and collaborate with other news organizations. I am fortunate that various traditional news outlets pick up and carry some of my blog posts.

The legal issues are important for bloggers and citizen journalists. Recently, a fellow blogger in North Dakota received his first subpoena to turn over information that he considers protected under North Dakota’s shield laws. It illustrates why the NewsU course is so important and why the question about who is a journalist is so important.

I made a comment on Where We Live about volunteer and paid journalists. I believe it is useful to look at journalists in a manner similar to how we look at firemen. Large cities have fire departments staffed by professional firemen. Smaller cities will have fire departments with professional firemen, which are supplemented by volunteer firemen. Small towns have volunteer fire departments where professionals only arrive if there is something really big going on. Yet even with that, the volunteer firemen often receive great training. We should be looking at this model for news organizations.

The issue of how journalists get paid is very significant. A recent article in Editor and Publisher reports that journalists are losing jobs at three times the rate of other workers. There has been recent talk about what can be done to address this, including President Obama expressing concern about the future of journalism. At the PRSA panel, I mentioned Spot Us which is a great organization to raise money to fund investigative reporting.

Yet there are other important issues that need to be considered in the future of journalism that too often get overlooked. Recently, I received an email from the Waterbury Republican American. This is not a paper that I typically consider leading the way on journalistic reforms. However, a note at the bottom of the email caught my attention. It urged readers with questions, comments or wanting to advertise to contact Kevin Johnson, Online Sales Manager.

I was curious about how many papers have ‘online sales managers’ and what sort of experiences Mr. Johnson had had to make him a successful online sales manager. It seems like too many news organizations simply take their print sales managers and ask them to sell online ads as well, without really understanding the differences between print and online advertising. Indeed, there is little about the Republican American site that would make you think they have made any great progress with online advertising, with the exception of the peel away ad for their dining guide.

The peel away ad and the dining guide are good examples of what can be done to improve online advertising by local papers. I spoke with Mr. Johnson who acknowledged that he had grown up in the world of print advertising, but has spent considerable time learning about online advertising. When he came to the Republican American, he came in as the Online Sales Manager, and besides spending time finding advertising he spends a lot of time mentoring print sales managers so that they can be more effective in selling online advertising. It seems to have worked since the Waterbury Republican American has had a substantial and impressive growth in online advertising revenues.

It is not only sales people and advertisers that are having difficulty connecting in this new media ecosphere. As more and more people leave traditional news organizations, it becomes harder for public information officers, communications directors, public relations staff and others to find the right people to pick up their media advisories and press releases and write about them. To address this problem, I’ve created CTNewsWire. This is a Google Group where local and state officials, candidates, agencies and other organizations can send press releases and media advisories about things of importance in Connecticut to bloggers, citizen journalists, and anyone else who wants to subscribe to Connecticut related releases. The list has been going for several months and continues to grow.

The media ecosphere around Connecticut and around the world is changing. There are lots of great opportunities to sit around and discuss these changes. However, here in Connecticut we are seeing some interesting efforts to move beyond the discussions and actually take action on ways that we can keep the media ecosphere vibrant in our state. If you’re a blogger, I hope you spend more time covering local events, and perhaps get some training in reporting and join the CTNewsWire. If you’re an advertiser, I hope you press the local news organizations to provide better and more innovative advertising opportunities, and if you are a newsmaker, I hope you find ways, like the CTNewsWire to reach out to some of the new players in the Connecticut media ecosphere.