Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) points us to a speech by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief for Reuters News, to the Intl. Olympics Committee Press Commission (June 23, 2009).

“We in the traditional media … must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value.

That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise.

It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand.

It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them. Working against them would be crazy.”

The last few days playing with the iPhone, Twitter, Posterous and YouTube make his last point really hop off the page.

I think the long-term success of our news networks –of everyone’s news networks– will depend on understanding and implementing these ideas. Okay, maybe the short-term success.