Four years ago, when I assumed the chairmanship of RTNDA, I gave a speech in which I talked about the future of electronic journalism. I said that because broadband access had become so pervasive, we were living in what I called “the new news economy,” where consumers had all of the power, I said.

I never thought that the new and emerging delivery platforms of 2005 would replace traditional journalism altogether, but I thought that at some point in the future they would revolutionize it even more than they already had.

“Some day—and it may come sooner than you think—we’ll look back on radio, television and newspapers as quaint relics of a bygone era,” I said. “Electronic journalism will mean ‘audio,’ ‘video’ and ‘text’ delivered on a variety of platforms.”

Little did I know that my prediction would start to come true much more quickly than I imagined, and not in the desirable context I envisioned.

Today, the collapse of local advertising markets across the country is forcing many newspapers to either eliminate their print editions or seriously consider doing so. Radio and TV newscasts have been cancelled. Thousands of journalists have lost their jobs.

We now live in the “newer news economy,” in which digital media—online, mobile apps, etc.—have become even more critical to traditional media companies desperate to accelerate the rate at which they have been reinventing themselves.

The problem is, the “newer news economy” is moving fast. The heavier reliance on digital media as a significant revenue source arrived before most media companies had figured out how to make it profitable enough to overcome shortfalls in on-air and print ad revenue.

So, my fellow digital media crusaders, I offer these suggestions on how to help your companies meet the challenge:

 •    You are now part of the sales department. Help your station’s or paper’s account executives prospect for new business. Suggest new interactive features that will engage advertisers. Know your website’s sales packages and offer ways to improve them so the ads on your site are more attractive. Learn how to optimize ad campaigns in progress to ensure they’re successful.

•    You are now a business development specialist. Forge revenue-sharing partnerships with other companies to create additional online platforms, either wrapped in your site or completely separate from it, that can bring in new revenue streams.

•    Internal marketing is critical. Crow about your site’s traffic and content successes to management and your sales department. Give credit to content producers who do an extraordinary job building traffic. Single out account executives who make large or creative digital sales. That which is praised is repeated.

•    External evangelizing is essential. Go on sales calls with account executives and help them educate planners, buyers and advertisers about digital media. Teach them that online ads aren’t free, that most ad network placements are ineffective, that buying ads at remnant rates will get their banners bumped and that the click-through rate is not the best success metric.

It is not a question of whether you can do all of this and still be a “capital ‘J’” journalist. It is a question of figuring out how. I’m here to tell you: It is possible to be “born again,” i.e., to embrace fully the notion that you must participate in revenue generation, and to preserve simultaneously the strict separation of church and state on your website.

 In the “newer news economy,” you have no choice.