I got a troubling e-mail recently from an old friend.

For privacy sake, let’s call him Jim.

Jim is a veteran journalist and long-time SPJ member. In the 20 years that I’ve known him, he has worked as a reporter for a weekly newspaper and a journalism instructor at two local colleges.

Jim is someone who cares deeply about journalism both past and future. And whenever I’ve needed his help on a Colorado SPJ project, he’s always there.

He is what you might call an “old school” journalist. He is mistrustful of the new gizmos like video cameras, digital sound recorders, social networking sites, podcasts and bloggers.

He believes the Internet has had a corrosive effect on the journalism values that he has honored for so long.

He detests the new metrics of a story being valued in units such as page views or unique visitors.

Likewise he deplores how television ratings and shrinking news budgets have depleted coverage of international news.

So it I was concerned when Jim informed me in a somewhat despondent e-mail that he plans on not renewing his membership when his current dues expire.

He will not renew, he wrote, until I could show him that SPJ is “doing something” to counteract these trends he so deplores.

My first reaction is a simple one. No way I’m going to give up on Jim without a fight. I’ll do what I have to do in order to convince him to stay within the fold. He’s too valuable.

That said, however, there are some hard truths that I’ve had to share with Jim.
No one can reverse the tide that the Internet now exerts over journalism. Nor should they. It would be as foolish as standing in the Colorado River trying to hold the water back.

I’ve pointed out to him that the next generation of journalists, as well as my own, needs to learn new skills required to practice journalism.

Jim needs to realize that while the tools we use are changing daily the basic core values of ethics, accuracy and fairness remain the same.

His complaint, however, brings up one important point as we try to recruit and retain SPJ members.

Often we focus on providing the training needed to develop the so-called “backpack journalists.” But it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that for members like Jim, the concepts of integrity and journalistic standards are the reason he joined SPJ in the first place.

That we honor those values goes without saying. But let’s remember that for some members, both young and old, the gizmos are not what got them into the business.

They joined SPJ because we stand for the core values that brought us together in the first place.

SPJ by the numbers

Membership this week               9,140

Membership one month ago       9,119

Membership one year ago           8,997