Among the many differences between running your own independent news operation and working at a corporate news job, ethical dilemmas rank high. As Poynter’s Kelly McBride says, there is a generally agreed upon set of principles among journalists in the Fourth Estate. When you’re talking about the Fifth Estate – her term for independent new media news startups – all bets are off and values and principles can vary from one site to another.

McBride led a session at a Poynter seminar I’m helping to lead this week called Bottom Line News: Creating Sustainable Journalism Startups. She took the group of 20 aspiring journo-entrepreneurs through case studies and exercises to help them define the values and principles that will guide them in the future.

McBride started with a list of “ethical pressure points” that news entities can expect to feel at some point:

1. Content you create
2. Content others create, often these others will not get a paycheck from you
3. Technology can undermine you
4. Conflicts between mission and revenue
5. Rapid growth
6. Failure

The biggest, she says, are conflicts between mission and revenue. “Money itself isn’t tainted, but it comes with stipulations always. There’s no clean money.”

She referenced the widespread controversy over “mommybloggers” accepting free stuff in return for positive reviews and discussed the recent controversy stirred up by ScienceBlogs with its Pepsi sponsorship (aka Pepsigate). In the new media era, journalists are forced to deal with issues that were the province of other departments at a news company.

“You’re responsible for upholding the standards and worrying about the bottom line,” McBride says. “You get to wear both those hats.”

The best way to guide your mission, your new venture, is to define both the values that you stand for and the principles that will support those values. “Principles are action statements,” McBride says. “Truth may be a value, but telling the truth is a principle. Principles are not a code of ethics. They are the infrastructure that can support a code of ethics.”

Fleshing out the values and principles that you will stand for as a news entrepreneur will help you make tough decisions down the road. You’ll have a document to refer to, and one that you should probably post on your website (especially if one of your values is transparency).

(Full disclosure: I was recently named as a Ford Fellow for Entrepreneurial Journalism at Poynter so realize that anything I write about Poynter could be considered somewhat self-promotional.)

I’ve grown accustomed to answering questions about the future of journalism, the life expectancy of printed newspapers and the financial prospects of online journalism. I have my opinions, of course. But the skepticism I’m used to hearing from journalists in the U.S. pales in comparison to some of the comments heard at a panel discussion I took part in last night in Dubai.

And with good reason.

Turns out, the Gulf Region still likes their print. In fact, arguably the region’s best newspaper launched just three years ago. In the U.S. we have the Huffington Post overtaking the Washington Post in online audience, but in the UAE it’s the upstart National shaking up the region – in print.

There are a number of English-language newspapers here, all printed in full broadsheet and full color (yes, on every page!) They are full of ads, too. Online media has a role for the traditional media companies, but it’s limited, compared to the U.S. and other cities in the West. And social media, especially Twitter, have been slow to gain critical mass. (Although apparently Facebook is doing quite well.)

Pia Heikkila answers a question from the audience.

Still, the future of journalism in the Middle East was apparent from the panelists assembled, and were representative of panel discussions I often do in the States. Pia Heikkila represented “big brand media.” As a freelancer, she sells her work to the BBC, Guardian and Al Jazeera (where she used to work). She flew in from Kabul where she is currently doing an assignment as a one-woman video journalist (5 months pregnant, to boot).

“Digital journalism is in its infancy, but has unlimited of potential. If the old dinosaurs don’t embrace the new world, they will die. The new world is already here. We need to change the way we think,” Heikkila said.

Also on the panel were a couple of new media success stories from the Gulf region. Ali Al Saloom is a self-described and well-known “brand” for his Ask Ali column in newspapers and corresponding website. He has also published a book and produces videos.

“Print is king,” Saloom said. “I know the cultures are different in the UK and in America, but print is still king here.”

Nabila Usman disagreed. Usman is a reporter/writer/blogger for Newzglobe.com, which just launched in the UAE and is already seeing impressive traffic. She described the content as “quirky” and “edgy” and apparently stirred up quite a controversy recently when she tried to attend a media forum at a bar while wearing her hajib (which is not allowed under UAE law). She and a few others were turned away, which she reported, and caused quite an uproar judging from the comments.

Usman predicted print newspapers going away in the next 10 years and envisioned taking her children to see copies of them in a museum. (Nice touch.)

While I’m confident that newspapers will still be available in print in the Gulf in 10 years, I’m also confident that online news will command a much bigger piece of the audience – and revenue – than today. The region might be a few years behind the U.S. in terms of technology and startup news projects, but this is a place that knows how to bigger/faster/better as well as anywhere. I won’t be surprised if we, in the U.S., are looking to the UAE for online news innovation by 2020.

This week’s New York Times magazine takes a stab at “What are you really worth” this week and includes a lengthy piece on journalists. I’ll spare you the context of the how the market has devalued traditional journalism while creating new opportunities and simply recommend you read the entire article by Andrew Rice. The money quote:

… for some — possibly foolhardy — reason, a lot of people still want to work in journalism, and even amid the depths of the recession, there have been stirrings of creativity. A multitude of younger, nimbler enterprises have popped up, unencumbered by the past and ready to try anything. History suggests that few of these ventures will ultimately survive: Web start-ups have a failure rate between 70 and 90 percent. But it’s quite possible that the experiments they’re staging are already producing the kind of innovations that make for new, sustainable business models.

For continuing coverage of independent journalism startups, check out the section we developed on Lost Remote to cover this emerging sector.

Just a couple of quick highlights that you don’t want to miss:

News:rewired: If you weren’t in London last week for this one-day conference, fear not, they’ve got you covered. The folks at Journalism.co.uk who organized the event also did a bang-up job covering the event for those who couldn’t be there in person. The main conference coverage page is a comprehensive roundup of links, videos and other information. Educators might consider using this as the basis for a mini lesson plan.

David Cohn on new revenue models: The Spot.Us founder weighs in on the Media Shift Idea Lab blog with a mini manifesto of sorts, titled The Search for a New Revenue Model in Journalism. “One of (the) assumptions, and I claim this all the time, is that there will always be a market for news and information,” Cohn writes. “That marketplace is in flux and hard to pin down at the moment, but people want accurate and thorough news and information. If this assumption is true, then journalism will be sustainable once we figure out the marketplace again and how to “sell” the news.”

Yes, Virgina, there is a business model for journalism. For now, however, it’s called “local online.”

Last week’s Interactive Local Media conference in Los Angeles featured two-and-a-half days of presentations and hallway conversations focused on connecting local businesses with local audiences while making money. “Monetizing the local opportunity” was the title of the conference, which is exactly the problem that so many “future of journalism” pessimists and pundits have suggested can’t be solved, leading to another tired discussion of pay walls and non-profit fundraising.

The overall takeaway from last week’s conference, since it was echoed by so many speakers and attendees, was best summed up by Brian Buchwald, Executive VP, Local Integrated Media and NBC Everywhere:

“Local online is a highly immature space.”

In going back through my notes from last week’s conference, I found several nuggets of interest. Taken together, they paint a fairly decent – and optimistic – picture of the state of local online. For more, see Lost Remote, Local Onliner and, for the most comprehensive roundup, the Kelsey blog.

Highlights from the 2009 Interactive Local Media conference (after the jump):

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The good news for local publishers? There is growing demand for local advertising.

The bad news? An entire industry of companies you’ve never heard of (including some giants you have) are laser-focused on connecting local businesses with local consumers and most of them don’t care if a publisher is in the middle of that transaction.

That’s my halftime analysis from the Interactive Local Media conference in Los Angeles. (I’m posting updates to Twitter and you can find the conference stream by searching the hashtag #ILM09.)

Publishers see opportunities, too, of course. NPR and ESPN are moving quickly on locally staffed “franchise” sites. MSNBC.com and CNN are focusing on getting local, too – down to the neighborhood level. The concept is not new: create content that draws an audience, then sell ads around it.

“Our model is to create high quality, high context, in-market ad inventory,” Outside.In CEO Mark Josephson said during a session today. “Local content is a proxy for local ad inventory and there is a fundamental shift that is creating huge opportunities.”

Josephson’s company is one that is trying to assist publishers. But there are so many more companies at this conference, from business directories to search engine marketing firms, that are direct-to-advertiser plays. They do everything from placing location-based mobile ads to tracking social media conversations and buying Google ads for small businesses. And don’t forget about the big G, of course, or MSN, Yelp, Facebook, etc.

If you’re a traditionalist and want to see legacy news media survive, it’s not pretty. Even the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, which includes TV and radio, has apparently only booked $83 million in ads this year, which isn’t going to save an industry (newspaper) that used to book some $40 billion. (And my outside impression is that Yahoo is getting the most benefit here, boasting about 100,000 local sales reps thanks to the partnership.)

If you’re a forward-thinker and an optimist, it’s exciting. Independent journalism startups have a bevy of potential partners to help them with the advertising side of the business. Sure, these third-party vendors will get a cut, but it might be less than you’d pay to staff up an ad sales team. And any percentage of zero is …

Additionally, there are publisher models worth following. Scott Tobias of Village Voice Media talked about a thriving local media business that includes three important segments: print, digital and street. The street team is a guerrilla marketing effort that can promote Village Voice events (online and offline) or do street-level marketing for big brands.

“Print is not dead for us,” Tobias said. “Village Voice wasn’t bloated like a lot of the metro dailies. And the Web is just an extension for what we’ve been doing for 25-plus years.”

The power of local brands still works, of course. Cory Bergman (MSNBC.com, Next Door Media, Lost Remote), Mike Orren (Pegasus News) and I were talking last night about how few of the companies here have any presence on main street. Local businesses have heard of Google, of course, but Yodle? Methinks not. Yet they claim to have 7,000 customers.

Yesterday, Howard Owens responded to one of Twitter updates with a prediction that “localpreneurs” will win this space in the end. If a local publisher can create, or in the case of newspapers – resuscitate, a recognized local brand, then local businesses are still an open opportunity.

After all, the one big recurring theme throughout all the sessions is that we’re still in the early days of all this. As Jim Pastor of ESPN said: “Anyone who tells you they know what local online looks like 1, 2, or 5 years from now is fooling themselves.”

Several hundred people at a Hyatt in LA this week think so.

And by “local online,” I’m referring specifically to the opportunity for marketing local businesses, not publishing local journalism. Although, as we’ve learned during the almost-completed decade, the latter will have trouble surviving without the former.

I’m at the Interactive Local Media conference in Los Angeles through Friday, analyzing the state of local business marketing online.

I’ll be posting updates to Twitter and you can find the conference stream by searching the hashtag #ILM09. If the morning sessions are any indication, there will be loads of good information presented here.

Already this morning, we heard about data that says that still only 42% of local businesses have a website, only 7% advertise online and only 14% have claimed their free profile page on Google. Clearly, there is opportunity here to connect buyers and sellers online. (And don’t even get me started on mobile.)

The question I’ll be seeking to answer is: will the local business marketing opportunity support new forms of journalism? The last time I attended a Kelsey conference, I bemoaned the fact barely a handful of newspaper companies sent representatives. Now, I’m not wondering where the legacy media companies are today, but where the independent journalism startups will fit into this landscape as they flourish in the future.

Many of the companies here are disintermediating the traditional publishing model. They work directly with local businesses to improve performance on Google, perform email marketing and mobile services. Some work to help publishers with directory listings and other products and services.

Newspapers funded their journalism for decades by connecting local buyers and sellers. If the next generation of journalism models succeed, they will have to compete with – or partner with – the innovative companies and concepts that will be presented at this conference during the next 48 hours. I’ll keep you posted.

(NOTE: I originally published this post on the Serra Blog.)

Expect to see more of this in the coming months: indepdent local news and information sites banding together to form a local/regional advertising network.

The Sacramento Press today announced the most recent version, called SLOAN for Sacramento Local Online Ad Network. It’s an ambitious effort, which should be no surprise coming from a start-up news site that has made a lot of progress in a relatively short time. The site counts some 700 contributors to its news machine and will soon have 18 partners to leverage when selling ads.

“We’ve been working really hard on this,” Ben Ilfeld, co-founder and COO, told me last week. “Hyperlocal ad networks have been talked about at conferences, and in the blogosphere, for some time. We wanted to tap into advertisers like auto dealers or Indian casinos and having a network will make that easier.

“Our goal to support people doing interesting and good hyperlocal journalism.”

Upon launch (in mid-January) SLOAN will include The Rancho Cordova Post, Gold River Online, Elk Grove Online, SacMix, The Sac Rag, MyFolsom.com and The Tomato Pages Network.

The SacPress staff will be the only ones selling into the network and Adify will supply the technology, so each will take cut of the action. But Ilfeld said publishers in the network will still receive 60% of the revenue, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

“We want to put together enough unique users to challenge the other news outlets, and eventually, maybe even the (Sacramento) Bee,” Ilfeld added.

In a recent “future of journalism” interview, author Clay Shirky said that things will get worse before they get better. He also said that he’s “a network-inhabiting news junkie of the first order” so the world “has been a paradise of additional information, additional points of view, additional access.”

The challenge – and the revolution – is bringing that additional access and information to average citizens in a local democracy. Independent journalism startups, powered by people whose paychecks used to come from mainstream media companies, are one form that will bridge that gap. But another, possibly more exciting, form is taking shape in the student-powered projects that are popping up all over.

They run the gamut, from News 21, a well-funded and impressive collaboration between eight universities, to student startups like NYULocal, which has 15 staffers and gets more traffic than the school’s newspaper site, according to founder and publisher Cody Brown. (Brown is also launching a project called Kommons.com that is provocative in its approach and will be exciting to watch.)

Now it’s spreading to the high school level with projects like The Foothill Dragon at the Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, Calif.

“This is the first year we’ve had journalism at the school in five years, so the kids are raw and they have a long way to go to learn good writing, reporting, videotaping, etc.” Melissa Wantz told me via email. “But I think we have a good platform to build on (and we got 450 Facebook fans in less than a month, so I guess that’s a good sign).”

Wantz is the journalism teacher who built the site (in Joomla) and recently presented the project at a conference at MIT. The site launched in October and the stuents made an introductory video with a great title: We don’t use paper for this. A former journalist, Wantz wonders whether the students truly appreciate what they have accomplished in a relatively short time.

“I don’t think the kids realize what they have with this site and their new journalism class,” Wantz said. “The influence and reach they now have… this generation thinks nothing of using incredibly powerful tools that are absolutely free.”

Maybe their naivete is a good thing. Getting back to Shirky, he wrote in his last book that digital social tools only become powerful when they were taken for granted. (You don’t ask someone if they have email anymore, but 15 years ago you did.) So if our next generation of journalists understands that the power to publish is in their hands (and if they don’t take it for granted), maybe the negative fallout that Shirky predicts can be limited.

One of the bad things I think it going to happen is, I think civic corruption is just going to rise for towns and regions of under about half a million people. Which is to say, I think the old model of the newspaper is going to break faster than the hyperlocal civic reporting can come in its place.

Revolutions are messy. There’s no question that some geographical areas will advance faster than others when it comes to local information and understanding and civic participation. But the potential to create a better-informed society is undeniable.

“I guess this is what it’s like to live through a revolution, the older people (I’m 46) are practically suspended in wonder at the changes and opportunities, and the younger people are just using the new tools like it’s no big deal,” Wantz said. “It’s not like the kids are out in front of me in terms of their knowledge of what’s possible, but in terms of their reaction to what’s possible? I’m not sure it’s possible to get a rise out of a teenager who carries a computer in his pocket. They have no idea when they became (so) connected. They just are.”

If a service or platform or other technological invention connects them and empowers them to inform one another, journalism has a bright future. It will look very different than it does today or has for the past 150 years. It may be viewed as a “social utility” – or “societal utility” – more than a professional craft. But it doesn’t matter what it’s called or who participates in it, as long as we move closer to the rain forest of local information and away from the desert.

There’s never been a better time for innovation in journalism, digital content and community.

So come help Serra Media build interactive digital platforms and communities for local publishers, independent journalism startups and university journalism programs.

My company is looking for smart people who are enthusiastic about local content, collaborative publishing and the future of digital content. We’re specifically looking for budding stars in the areas of community management, social marketing and web development (Drupal experience preferred).

If that’s you, check out the details on Serra Media’s Internship Program. These aren’t traditional news/journalism positions, but will be valuable experience and a good resume builder for anyone looking for work in digital communication.