"If I really wanted traffic, I'd post porn."

Tuning into the NewsTools2008 conference has been an inspiring experience to say the least, as journalists and tech geeks combine brainpower to brainstorm new ideas about the future of journalism.

But at the end of the day, I can't help but think... is all this brainstorming, time and effort all worth it? Will our audiences actually care?

Let's look at two questions I discussed with some bloggers yesterday:

1)  Did you get the audience?

2) Did you get the advertising dollars?

Journalists can plop all their best news content online, but if they’re not addressing the above two questions – it just doesn’t matter. Afterall, what pays for journalism? Advertising dollars. And what brings more advertising dollars? A larger audience.

This causes a dilemma, as we look at what content tends to get the most hits on the Internet. It's not news, that’s for sure.

Celebrity gossip? Porn? Yes. Yes.

Perhaps that's why I overheard one blogger at NewsTools 2008 say the following:
“If I really wanted traffic, I’d post porn.”

Vanity Fair had one of it’s biggest days, hits-wise, when the juicy story about childstar Miley Cyrus (character: Hannah Montana) broke last week. The 15-year-old Disney actress and pop singer, posed nude with a bed sheet in the June issue of the magazine. So the masses read that story the most – they didn’t turn to election coverage, local news, or even sports stories as much as they turned to a naked 15-year-old.

Even today, four days later, Miley Cyrus is still the top Yahoo! search and Annie Leibovitz, the celebrity photographer who took the image, is eighth in Yahoo! searches.

So how do journalists, who want to cover important stories compete? How does information compete with entertainment?

Do we turn to salacious, sensational journalism to be competitive, or do we stick to our traditional journalistic values and sink into oblivion?

How do you stick to your standards and still put food on your table at the end of the day?  It's a bothersome, but true dilemma. Journalists have to deal with the challenge of balancing information with entertainment.

We at the NewsTools2008 conference can sit around all day discussing promising new journalism tools that will benefit democracy… but is that even what the public wants?

After we invest all this brainpower, money and time into creating better journalism, will anyone tune in?

Is it worth it?

Let’s be optimistic, but realistic as well.