There’s one week left to submit an entry to the “I Am The Future Of Journalism” Contest. The deadline is December 30.

We’ve gotten some great entries by journalists who are thinking creatively, passionately, and positively about the future. You can show your support for them by helping to rate the entries (some examples embedded below):

With all the debate over the future of newspapers, here’s a question I haven’t heard anybody ask (much less answer): If a metropolitan newspaper suddenly ceased to publish, leaving the city with no newspaper, what would happen to all of that newspaper’s ad dollars?

Most newspaper companies’ strategy right now is based on the assumption that you can’t shut down the print newspaper because it brings in 90% of the revenue, and you couldn’t possibly support the same news gathering operation with the 10% revenue slice that goes to the website. (The 10% problem)

There’s just one problem with this assumption. All of the ad dollars that the print newspaper gets are, by definition, ad dollars that the newspaper’s website does NOT get.

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So you’ve got a big breaking story right in your backyard, e.g. the governor gets arrested for trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the President Elect. Your newsroom is on the case, but the story is still developing. There are national ramifications, so reporting goes beyond the local angle. How do you round out your front page coverage, add to your dynamic updates, and reinforce to readers that you are THE destination for this story?

If you’re the Chicago Tribune, you create a link journalism feature that dynamically tracks what “what others are saying“.

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I want to further explore the idea of “scrapbook news” as a way of reframing the crowdsourcing/citizen journalism discussion.

One reason mainstream news organizations haven’t embraced the concepts may be that the spirit (if not the letter) of the cit-j discussion tends to focus on the people involved rather than the news being covered. That is, the tonal takeaway is often something like “Who needs professional journalists? Throw the useless bums out of their tower!”

These ideas might get a better reception if the discussion instead focused on which kinds of news are best suited to coverage by people outside the newsroom.

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Discussions about journalism innovation usually focus on technology: Twitter, RSS, Flash, Django, data visualization, and all the other cool stuff that’s making online news so rich.

But there’s an equally important conceptual aspect of journalism innovation. Newsrooms have to rethink the kind of stories they cover and the way they tell those stories, or all the new technologies could be wasted on news that readers don’t find relevant or interesting.

To do this, they have to practice innovation-by-omission. That is, they need to stop writing stories that don’t deserve to be written.

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The “I Am The Future Of Journalism Contest” has its first entry, and it’s awesome. Daniel Bachhuber is a journalism student at the University of Oregon, a photographer, web developer, member of CoPress, and a journalist with a compelling vision of the future:

Here’s the text of Daniel’s entry:
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Publish2 is launching a contest for journalists to promote themselves as the future of journalism. We believe journalism has a bright future, and we’re betting everything on that belief.

The winner of the “I Am The Future Of Journalism” Contest receives a prize that we know is increasingly valuable in journalism due to shrinking supply — a job.

It’s a job with Publish2, a start-up focused on helping journalism thrive in the digital age. We already employ two incredibly talented journalists, Tammi Marcoullier and Josh Korr, and we want to expand our team. Included in the offer is a $1,000 signing bonus.

But since we can only hire one journalist, we’re going to promote all entries to news organizations and media companies that are looking for journalists who are focused on the future and who want to help journalism evolve.

To enter the contest, you can submit a video, a slide show, or a written statement (or all three) about why you believe you are the future of journalism.

“I am the future of journalism because…”

That’s all the direction we’re giving. We want you to define the future and how you want to be a part of it.

Get all the details and enter the contest.

The contest finalists — and those who get the most attention from other prospective employers — will be chosen by you. Please lend your fellow journalists a hand by rating their entries.

The contest is open to submissions until December 30, and entries can be rated up until January 9.

Why are we running this contest? Well, we wanted to do a promotion. We thought about giving away a laptop or something. But we thought this contest would mean a lot more.

Journalism right now needs to focus positively on the future.  That’s what Publish2 is all about.

This was a lot more work, but we think it will be worth it.

Enter now. Tell a friend. Spread the word.

You are the future of journalism — get inspired, get noticed, get hired.

There’s an article page on GoVolXtra, Knoxnews.com’s sports vertical site for the Tennessee Vols, that accounted for 6% of ALL Knoxnews and GoVolXtra article page views for the last two weeks, and as much as 14% of all article page views one of the days since it was first published. The page has consistently generated about twice as many page views as the next most visited page. And the article has racked up nearly 300 comments, becoming a nexus for discussion and debate on the hot topic that it covers — who will replace University of Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer.

What’s notable about this article is that it is almost entirely LINKS:

We’re out to give GoVolsXtra readers the latest in coach sightings right up until the press conference to announce the next head coach of the Volunteers no matter who has the story. Check this list often; we’ll be adding to it.

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