Finding the Stories of the Future   

In tornadoes of change around us, unimaginative thinking won’t help.

Changing media technology continues to mesmerize, with many new questions remaining unanswered. The main one for journalists, since it involves the basic integrity of our work, is how much commercial undertow the convergence will have.

Marketing considerations will be central, but they always were. Nobody, even a century ago, wanted to work for a publisher who was not solvent. And very few wanted to work for a newspaper that was not read. Journalism's marriage of business and profession is historical.

But the convergence of media raises new specters that menace us unless we see them coming and put firm barriers in front of them.

At a recent conference run by New Directions for News, one consultant on the future spoke to the possibilities in packaging stories about, say, Tiger Woods. In addition to a story pegged to the news, he said, you could enable viewers/readers to drill down for features about Tiger's favorite foods, hobbies, etc.; his life story; and how to buy Tiger Woods golf clubs.

How's that again?

The futurist seemed puzzled by the journalists' negative howls.

Another observation about some of the futurists at this conference: not all, but a couple. They seemed disaster-prone about the future because they didn't have a sense of the past. If you're ignorant of history and don't have a careful respect for it, you may go for any number of nostrums that look like easy solutions to the problems of today. Never mind that they may have been disasters the first time out.

The best futurists no doubt will be people with perspective and seasoning, aware of their own limitations, not so certain they're prescient, and definitely not arrogant about what they think they see ahead.

If we can get even some fix on the changes the world will see as a result of the speed-of-light biotech, genetic, theological, pharmaceutical, aerospace and other revolutions of our time, we'll find great stories, every day.

The organization New Directions for News came into being more than a decade ago to encourage imagination about the future, "thinking outside the box," grappling with the impact of new-media technologies.

Those technologies have landed. In just a few more years we will have passed their scary initial impact. Then we come to an even bigger challenge for news organizations--finding the stories of the future.

No doubt we'll still be experimenting with how to make news more comprehensible, more memorable, more flexible for multiple uses. But more important will be sharpening up for our main mission, as storytellers. Not as mere information conduits; anybody can do that. But as people who can find the stories, understand them and tell them compellingly.

And the best stories may come from being good futurists, when the future is changing everyday.