Remarks of Tony Snow
"I come not to bury journalism, but to celebrate and challenge it. It's a cliche that every crisis presents an opportunity, but it's true: The democratization of the media is a good thing. We now face competition from all quarters - including from people who have specialized expertise that journalists lack. We ought to welcome the new participants in the game and learn from them. They should do the same with us. There’s an old boast in the business - that the job of a journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The thing is, we never realized that we were becoming The Comfortable - with good pay, job security, and access to movers and shakers all around the world. We need to cast off our coziness, venture away from safe stories and presumptions and into the wilderness of new topics, new ideas and new sources of information. In that quest lies the possibility of fulfillment and joy - and the hope of keeping alive the text and the spirit of the First Amendment."