Jeff Jarvis, the journalist/academic who helped pioneer the concept of Networked Journalism spends a lot of his time picking fights and sparking ideas. Today he has attempted to put something positive up on a scenario for news.

It is a list of key thoughts about what news will look like in the future. As Jeff admits it’s mostly not new stuff but it is a useful compendium of models for the business of journalism.

Here’s the key points:

1. The next generation of local (news) won’t be about news organizations but about their communities 
2. The local news organization inevitably will be smaller
3. The heart of the work of local news organizations will be beats (specialist or geographical areas)
4. Editing will change
5. Some – only some – journalism will be supported by the public.
6. Investigative journalism will continue
7. Do what you do best and link to the rest will be a foundation of the future architecture of news.
8. Specialization will take over much of journalism.
9. Reverse syndication presents one possible model for supporting deep, specialized reporting of broad interest by national news organizations.
10. News will find new forms past the article 
11. News organizations will be disaggregated as many functions are split off or outsourced.
12. News organizations won’t be the only companies involved in news. 
13. Revenue will still come from advertising.

Jeff wrote the preface to my book SuperMedia so you won’t be surprised that I agree with his core thinking:

“Could journalism die? Yes, but I have faith and optimism that it will survive, evolve, and grow. I believe there will be a growing market demand for journalism; I know there is a growing need.”