THE first day of the New News Conference began with Bob Katter’s tongue.

Or, rather, the glorious feat that was the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ rolling off of it into the waiting microphones of the Australian mass media.

Dr Julianne Schultz- founding editor of the Griffith Review, founding director of the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism and member of the ABC Board- opened the conference with an acknowledgement of the acuity of Bob Katter’s observation.

There is, she said, something going on.

Julianne Schultz (Photo: Craig Butt)

According to Dr Schultz, the current state of political flux may be symptomatic of a nation on the brink of cultural evolution.

A change that will affect the future of the Australian media, she said.

Dr Schultz hopes journalism of the future will involve more proactive reporting.

She described current practices of reportage to be largely reactive, with journalists providing superficial coverage of events as they chase breaking news.

She urged the sea of journalists before her- some aspiring, some seasoned- to rise to the challenge of a new news paradigm, utilizing the opportunities new media afforded them to reach the public in ways never imaginable before.

Julianne Schultz's opening address to the New News Conference (Footage: The Melbourne Press Club)

One such opportunity may be the YouCommNews website, launched by the Public Interest Journalism Foundation today.

The website is designed to provide an opportunity for members of the public to suggest potential leads for new stories to a collection of professional journalists.

Provided an interested party provides sufficient funding to research and report a story, a reporter will be commissioned to do so.

YouCommNews is just one example of the push for further investment into investigative journalism from respected members of the Australian media sphere such as Dr Schultz.

The role of journalists, she said, ought to be to curate the large amount of information available in the public sphere due to the Internet in such a way that it makes sense to the Australian people.

The journalists of the future ought to be analyzing and reporting on the underlying socio-cultural events of most concern to the public that cause the breaking news scenarios to bubble to the surface, before such events break, she said.

Dr Schultz’s hopes for resurgence in investigative journalism, and reporting for the people rather than to the people, were echoed throughout each of the day’s sessions.

Although much of the new media debate appears to have been spawned by the introduction of new technology, the age-old discussion about the role of the journalist is reemerging in light of the impact of new mediums on the trade.

Editor-in-Chief of the Herald & Weekly Times, Phil Gardner, said the role of journalists will never, ever change.

"Role and value of journalists will never ever change: to inform, engage, enlighten, educate and entertain,” he said.

The popular consensus of the speakers of the first day of the conference seems to be avoiding being lead by technology, but embracing the opportunity to learn how best to master its applications to journalism.

“Technology writing the story is wrong,” Mr Gardner said.

Mr Gardner said the quality of the content being put on new mediums was of more importance than the mediums themselves.

“People will come to [quality] content,” he said.

“They will come to these platforms [new media] if the content is right.

“Without great content, technology is nothing,” he said.

Surprisingly, the debate about the future of news business models was comparatively minor.

Dr Schultz best explained the reason for this in her opening address.

Fixing business models, she said, was not what journalists did best.

At some point in these uncertain times, Dr Schultz said journalists forgot their strength- reporting.

The New News 2010 Conference is held from 2- 3 September in association with the Melbourne Writers Festival, Swinburne University of Technology's Public Interest Journalism (PIJ) Foundation and the Victorian Government.