Photo by: Michael Furman

Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the New York Times and DU alumnus, spoke about the future of journalism on Friday before an audience of about 35 students and media professors in the Mass Communications building.

Rosenthal, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in American history in 1978, said the next era of journalism will not be in an online format.

“Websites aren’t the future of journalism,” he said.

He foresees that information will be delivered through an inexpensive, portable electronic device, rather than through a printed newspaper.

In his view, computers are too expensive and non-portable for them to be the medium of the future, he said. Rosenthal described an electronic device that costs around $50, is easy to “page” through like a newspaper and is flexible enough to be rolled up and put in a pocket.

Rosenthal agreed with the decision of some newspapers, including The New York Times, to start charging for their online content.

Newspapers should have been charging for online news from the beginning, he said.

“It’s a mistake to let people think there’s no value in what we produce,” said Rosenthal.

The New York Times will institute its metered-model, a system to charge for content on a per-view basis, sometime next year.

The paper is still deciding which content it will charge for and which content will continue to be free, he said.

He also spoke on covering the “biggest story of our lives,” Sept.11, for The Times.

Rosenthal put in very long hours producing a special section called “A Nation Challenged” each day for several months after the event. He felt like he was helping people, many of whom anticipated the paper’s release each morning for its coverage of the tragedy.

“People were waiting for The New York Times,” he said.

The paper later won a Pulitzer Prize in public service journalism for the section.