By Henry Freeman
Editor
The Journal News
White Plains, N.Y.

The future of news is bright, but it will require a nimble newsroom that is capable of delivering news and information over a variety of changing delivery systems, including some we can't currently envision.

It will require a more open organizational structure, one that removes many of our traditional walls and builds strategic partnerships -- both inside and outside of the building -- to provide a greater depth of information.

It will require more nurturing of our people, providing them the training to better understand the market they serve, to help acquire an ever-changing skills set and to help them adapt to and accept an environment that will be constantly changing.

It will require our recognition that "we" don't own the news; the reader does. It will require reaching out to the reader, understanding that they have valuable content to provide to other readers as well. It will require truly building platforms that let our news organizations help our communities talk to themselves, while recognizing that those communities may not be geographic.

It will mean gathering information from multiple points and in multiple ways; filtering that information to provide people what they want, when they want it and recognizing what may only be a quick nugget of information and what may require more substantive reporting or what material can be delivered in different ways through different platforms.

It will mean aggressively regaining ground we foolishly ignored in the past. It will mean admitting we don't "know it all." There will be unknowns, there will be successes, and there will be failures.

It will be empowering. It will be fun.