Editor's note: Karen Magnuson, 2007 president of APME, gave this speech at the conference in October.

Karen Magnuson

We editors are among the luckiest people on Earth.

We are blessed with an awesome responsibility – to serve our communities well with good journalism – and we are doing that in many ways despite many obstacles.

I encourage you to join me in looking at today as a new beginning. There are many reasons to have faith in our industry and to approach our jobs with a re-energized sense of purpose as we leave this conference and head back to our newsrooms.

For APME, the new beginning couldn't happen at a more appropriate time. In 2008, we will celebrate a huge milestone – our 75th anniversary. The leadership team has been hard at work laying a foundation for the next 75 years.

For those of you who attended last year's conference, you'll recall that we launched an ambitious fundraising campaign – a challenge to raise a minimum of $146,000 in less than a year.

This was particularly challenging because we couldn't go to our usual corporate supporters. The Challenge Grant funders asked us to collect the donations from individuals or family foundations.

As president, I must admit I was a little nervous. After all, how could a group of mostly volunteer editors find the time and expertise to raise that much money while our industry was in a tumultuous state of transition?

I'm happy to report that we exceeded our goal by far, raising $177,000. With the matching funds of $73,000 provided by Challenge Grant funders, we raised a total of $250,000.

The experience showed us just how much APME means to a variety of journalists and newspaper executives across the country. More than 200 people dug deep into their pockets to give APME donations. Some employers jumped in with company matches.

Many of those donors are in this audience, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is because of you that APME will have a new beginning.

I'd also like to thank Hank Klibanoff, a managing editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Suki Dardarian, a managing editor for the Seattle Times, for leading the Challenge Fund charge.

We are using this new pool of money to build a stronger infrastructure. We are developing new support systems to better manage things like membership, marketing and communications.

We're also using a formal strategic planning process to develop a five-year plan. Steve Sidlo, editor and publisher of the Springfield News-Sun in Ohio, will be APME president in 2010 and is leading the process to ensure continuity.

There are many other things APME has done this year. I'm most proud of our joint project with UNITY on improving diversity through greater retention. I encourage everyone to attend our general session immediately following this luncheon. You'll see a video with clips from roundtables with journalists of color, hear what UNITY leaders think about our findings and have a chance to ask questions. Attendees also will receive an exclusive Editor's Toolkit with a special report and more than 100 tips.

You'll probably be happy to know that I'm not going to launch into a long list of other accomplishments. Those of you who follow APME know what we do.

I'd rather use this precious time to talk about the new beginning for you, the journalists who work for you and those who are considering a career in journalism but worry about the future.

As I've talked with editors around the country, I've noticed that some are getting weary. They feel beaten down by the bad news on Romenesko, newsroom budget cuts and the constant criticism by bloggers and others.

The news on Romenesko is what it is. I choose not to dwell on it and encourage others to do the same.

There is no getting around the budget cuts. Unfortunately, they've been a part of doing business. We've all done our best to make strategic decisions that minimize the impact on print readers while investing more in multimedia.

But it's time to stop the bleeding in our nation's newsrooms. The integrity of our news reports is at stake. We are at a critical juncture. Our industry must work harder to avoid making more newsroom cuts.

Fortunately, help is on the way. Our industry is starting to get serious traction with building revenue from non-traditional areas. More on that in a moment.

We also can't get around the bloggers who gobble up and often criticize what we produce. I attended a conference called "Journalism That Matters" in Memphis just before the Third National Conference For Media Reform. A leader of the media reform group spoke to us and announced, bluntly, that "Mainstream media is dead." I didn't stick around for his conference, but nearly 3,000 people attended and I followed some of the coverage. It opened my eyes to a significant movement, mainly from the political left, demanding better news coverage.

We're going through a tough period, to be sure, but I believe it is teaching us lessons to make us stronger.

First, we've become more humble. It's no secret that some view our industry – and journalists in particular – as a bit arrogant. We are listening more closely to our critics, including the bloggers, and finding they often seek what we seek. Some can give us insights into ourselves. We shouldn't ignore them. Let's learn from them.

Second, we're learning how to be more creative. Many of us have transformed our newsrooms while trimming our budgets. And if this week's AP and APME award winners are a good indication, and I believe they are, we are doing this while continuing to produce top-notch journalism. We must keep this up!

Third, we're learning how to take more risks. We grew up in an industry that discouraged us from taking risks because failure was not an option. Now, if we're not failing on occasion, it means we're not experimenting enough. This brings with it a great sense of freedom. I think it's liberating! Take advantage of this opportunity to innovate even more!

This brings me back to why I believe we editors are among the luckiest people on Earth. We are blessed with the gift of leadership of the nation's newsrooms. We get personal satisfaction out of serving our communities with impactful journalism.

As we produce more of this journalism online, we have an opportunity to serve more people than ever before. According to the Online Publishers Association, Internet users are now spending nearly half their online time visiting content – a 37 percent increase in share of time from four years ago.

We are producing more journalism on more platforms and reaching more people every day. So why not sing about that from the mountaintops?

If you think it's inappropriate for editors to sing such a song, let me share something from a book about the history of The AP. Oliver Gramling, author of "AP: The Story of News," writes about the spirit journalists had for their craft long before they had the tools and technology we enjoy today.

I'd like to read a passage about the competitiveness in the industry around the time of the War of 1812. It's about David Hale and Gerard Hallock, owners of The Journal of Commerce, among the 10 daily newspapers competing in New York in the early 1800s.

"The era of evening newspapers had not arrived, but Hale and Hallock gave New York its first ‘extra' by running off important news on their old hand presses for distribution during the afternoon hours. They broke precedent by putting their biggest news on page one, and they introduced credit lines proclaiming '25 DAYS LATER FROM EUROPE' to stress the speed with which they were obtaining the latest foreign reports."

Wow. Such pride for sharing the news inside of 25 days! Just what would they think about today's text alerts?

Technology has pushed us to another level and we've had to adopt a new business model. There are encouraging signs the new model is working. Advertising departments are now taking full advantage of the multimedia we're producing. New revenue is beginning to replace the money lost from more traditional areas.

The Newspaper Association of America reports that advertising expenditures for newspaper Web sites increased by more than 19 percent in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago. Web site advertising now accounts for 7 percent of total newspaper ad spending compared with about 5 percent in last year's second quarter.

NAA also reports that more than 59 million people visited newspaper Web sites on average during the second quarter, a record number that represents a nearly 8 percent increase over the same period a year ago. That's about 37 percent of all active Internet users.

Even at my own newspaper, where we are challenged by a tough economy in upstate New York, there are emerging bright spots. The Democrat and Chronicle achieved non-daily growth of 35 percent year-over-year in August. Online revenues grew 34 percent. These new revenue streams brought in an extra $300,000 in just one month. And my publisher tells me that these positive trends continued in September.

This is a new beginning.

I think it's critical to share an encouraging message with others – your staffers, your friends, aspiring journalists, your community. If today's technology doesn't flip your trigger, then think for a moment about what truly inspires you about this business and share that spirit.

For editors like my friend David Ledford, incoming president of APME, it's watchdog journalism. He lives for righting wrongs.  He often refers to it as "God's work."

I believe him when he calls it that. It's not because I am a Christian, although I am proud to say I'm a person of faith.  And it's not because I've asked for divine intervention more than a few times to manage the newsroom and APME during the last year.

No, it is because I truly believe we editors have a special calling. We have a mission like no other in serving our communities. Just look at the good coming from investigations such as the Washington Post's examination of Walter Reed. Who would tell that story if a newspaper didn't?

Most likely no one. Let us all leave this conference thinking about our blessings and opportunities.

As for me, I'm thankful for many things – the support of my staff, my company and my friends and family. My husband, Tod Myers, has had the patience of a saint as I've spent nights and weekends working on behalf of APME. He's here today, and I'd like to publicly thank him and ask him to stand for a round of applause.

And I couldn't have done this without the generosity of my publisher, Michael Kane. In true form, he took time out of his very busy schedule to support me and attend APME.  Michael, would you stand, too?

While I certainly faced a few challenges, I've enjoyed my year as president. I'd like to thank the leadership team and Mark Mittelstadt, our executive director, for their hard work and extraordinary commitment.

Thanks to all of you, too, for attending APME and doing all that you do. It's been a great honor to serve you.

As I look around this room, I see promise.

I see integrity and the First Amendment.

I see innovation and the future.

Indeed, we editors are among the luckiest people on Earth.