People don’t see a distinction between what they do as journalists and the medium they do it in. So if you use the web or technology in any way you are an ‘online journalist’. Use shorthand and you are a ‘print journalist’.

To paraphrase Dan Gilmour, does using a telephone make you a telephone journalist. No.

You can do pretty much anything journalistcally - including use a database - if you are a journalist first and medium second.

I’ll cede that it doesn’t sound like traditional journalism, but it’s not an either/or proposition. So many times when I suggest new skills for a subset of journalists, I get a lot of pushback from traditional journalists thinking that I’m suggesting that all journalists need to have these skills and be involved in this work. But some do.

I’m not sure that journalism isn’t ‘full of passionate people wanting to do cool things with technology’. And maybe to tease out Adrian’s point, it’s not doing things with technology for the sake of the new. It’s about improving journalism by using new technology to best effect, and that’s not just about new methodss of distribution and presentation but also new methods of newsgathering.

I have to agree- that doesn’t sound like journalism.