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Reporting basics essential, online
news guru Dave Kansas says

By Whitney Bermes
J-School Web reporter

Photo by Whitney Bermes

Dave Kansas, a veteran of the online news world, speaks at UM’s School of Journalism on March 17.

A seasoned financial journalist made a stop in Missoula on March 17 to talk about the past, present and future of online news media.

Dave Kansas, president of FiLife.com, a new financial website set to launch in May, spoke at the Missoula Art Museum. The event was put on by NewWest.net and was sponsored by the University of Montana School of Journalism and Farmers State Bank Online.

In the talk, “ On the Bleeding Edge of Internet Media,” Kansas talked about the combination of the old model of newspapers and their online presence as a “smashing together of cultures.”

“Smashing online and print organizations together becomes more efficient,” Kansas said.

Kansas has been working in online news for the past 12 years. In 1996, Kansas left a job at the Wall Street Journal to help start the financial website TheStreet.com. He became the editor of the site in 1997. He stayed there until 2001.

“It’s remarkable how things have changed in the intervening 12 years,” he said.

Before the Internet made its impact, newspapers and their readers had a one-way conversation, where the newspaper would tell the readers what was important. But that has changed, Kansas said.

“In the last ten years, readers want to be more participatory,” Kansas said. “This creates a challenge for news people. A lot of news organizations are grappling with this dynamic.”

With Kansas’ new project, FiLife.com, he said they were trying to make their financial site fun, with applications that are accessible, entertaining and interactive. Personal experience of the readers will create their experience on the site.

“They will have a simple interaction and receive stories relevant to them,” Kansas said.

Kansas was asked to speak in Missoula by Jonathan Weber, the founder, CEO and publisher of NewWest.net.

“He is a good friend of mine and he is one of the pioneers of online media,” Weber said. “I thought Dave was a great person to have come to have a conversation with about these issues,” Weber said.

The small crowd asked Kansas questions ranging from the difficulties newspapers face in giving older generation readers what they have come to know while appealing to younger readers who may not be in the habit of reading traditional news sources.

“He spoke to some really relevant interests of mine,” said Jeanette Russell, an audience member at Kansas’ MAM speech. “I came because of the topic and staying up to speed with Internet trends. We don’t get that a lot in Montana.”

Earlier in the day, Kansas took part in a brown bag lunch at the School of Journalism where he spoke to a handful of journalism professors, students and high school students visiting from Big Sky High School.

Kansas emphasized that even in this era of enormous technological growth and change the most basic skills and tenants of journalism remain the same: good, fair, accurate reporting.

“You can’t lose track of the basic building blocks of good journalism,” Kansas said.

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