I met Steve Boriss shortly after moving to St. Louis and he is one very smart dude. He teaches the class “The Future of News” at Washington University here and blogs at TheFutureOfNews.com. He and I have put together programs to help organizations and agencies succeed in the emerging news environment. I asked him to write this week’s column to introduce himself and to provoke some interesting discussion about the changes he sees coming for the news industry. Take it away, Steve.

For decades, when people referred to “the news,” we all knew what they meant.  It was what was covered by our handful of local metro newspapers and TV network affiliates.  And it all looked and sounded about the same – the same stories told from the same angles (a.k.a. “the national conversation”).   

But with the Internet now providing multitudes of new choices, audiences are completely rewriting the definition of news.  No one can say for sure where “news” will end-up, but it is already clear that news will no longer just be about these 5 things: 

1. Not just about “truth”

In America, the field of journalism essentially demands that its practitioners swear they are delivering “truth.”  Yet for all their efforts, only 18% of the public considers newspapers to be consistently believable.  A big problem is that the Internet reveals far too many instances where papers get it wrong, or alternative ways to look at events and come to nearly opposite conclusions.  But an even bigger problem is that delivering truths is a job that has always been better-suited for scientists, historians, and think tanks, not writer-generalists under intense deadline pressure. 

Look for news to become less about supposedly unimpeachable individuals publishing verified truths, and more about reliable individuals leading with rumors and unconfirmed reports, with accuracy refined over time as part of a conversation that draws in both official and unofficial news sources. 

2. Not just a single point-of-view

An unfortunate corollary of American journalism’s quest for truth has been the presumption that this quest can only lead to singular, correct answers, like in science.  But news today mostly covers issues relating to social and political sciences, which share their last name with hard sciences, but do not operate the same way.  Unlike true scientific disciplines, public policy issues are not testable using variable-controlling scientific methods that are capable of proving or shattering hypotheses.  There will always be unknowns and unknowables.  Moreover, in a free country there will always be room for citizens to state preferences based on their own pursuits of happiness, and to choose news outlets consistent with their own worldviews. 

Look for news outlets to fragment by partisanship or worldview, as audiences select outlets that share their voices.  For a sneak preview, look at London’s collection of partisan papers. 

3. Not just facts separated from opinion

It’s impossible to address this topic without a nod to the elephant in the room.  The idea that today’s journalism provides facts without opinion, as the field continues to insist, is no longer tenable.  An overwhelming two-thirds of the public no longer believes it, and they are right.  This is not because today’s journalists are incompetent – it is because separating facts from opinion is an utterly impossible goal.  The mere decision that an item is “newsworthy,” among the infinite number of possible stories and angles available, expresses an opinion, and it typically puts one person or cause on the defensive.   

Separating facts and opinion is not only impossible, it is also undesirable.  Why not let those who are more knowledgeable about news topics help us understand their meaning, or fill-in their best guesses on the unknowns?  We would never think to ask a doctor, lawyer, or other person whose more informed opinion might help us withhold their opinions. 

The rapid growth of the blogosphere was an indication of how thirsty the public was for opinion, particularly the opinion of those whose worldviews matched their own.  Look for the distinction between fact and opinion to continue to blur, and for the growing irrelevance of those who continue to insist that they can separate the two. 

4. Not just about the public sector

As Carolina Journal’s Jon Ham has noted, looking at the front page of almost any daily newspaper would lead you to believe that government and public sector programs are the essence of American life.  But, most of us have little to do with the public sector – the private sector is where we work, raise our kids, and live.  This obsession with the public sector has been more of a reflection of how journalists have defined their role in the country — as a powerful force for social change — and less of a reflection of what audiences have really been interested in. 

Look for more news about the private sector, our vocations, and our lifestyles. 

5. Not just about the lives of others

At its root level, “news” is simply new information shared within a community.  Since the community we care about most is our family and friends, it is not surprising that one of the biggest Internet developments so far has been the emergence of social computing, e.g. sites like Facebook and MySpace.  Yet, our news has been dominated by stories at the metro-area level and above.  This is not because audiences necessarily preferred this news, but because technology could efficiently deliver it. 

Look for more news about the people we know and the communities we live in, and relatively less about those we will never meet and places we will never go. 

Now that the Internet has given audiences more to choose from, they and not journalists will define what news is.  It will never be the same.