At South by Southwest in Austin over the weekend, author of Journalism Next Mark Briggs talked about the new forms of journalism. I watched parts of his talk and found some points to be a great explanation about where journalism is  headed.

He pointed out that the death of print is not the death of journalism, it’s just one form of journalism that is being replaced. I completely agree. Journalists are now adapting to online forms of journalism.

One of the forms that Briggs talked about is entrepreneurial journalism, which I think really highlights the changing business. He described how some online journalism outlets are being back by venture capitalists, meaning that those people want they’re money back. Briggs said that this shows the fact that this new form has a “promising economic future”.

I agree. It means that people realize that journalism on the Web is the new main outlet for journalism, that it’s not going away and therefore it is profitable.

Briggs also mentioned how social media is definitely not a fad. People share links to stories on social media.

One thing he mentioned about Twitter was enlightening to me. He talked about how Brian Stelter formerly of The New York Times used Twitter as a “radical form of transparency,” meaning that he invited people to poke holes in his stories (You can bet I quickly added Stelter to my growing list of journalists that I follow).

To me, this shows that while there are new forms of journalism, the traditional journalism ideals and practices live on and are even maximized by them. Social media provides an even more direct way to be transparent and accountable for stories shared online. Our names our not only attached to the story, they are attached to anything we post online, so we better make sure that what we post is verified.