Each time someone says that American journalism has lost its way, they should spend five minutes talking with CNN's Jon Klein, one of the most visionary news thinkers in the business today. He has a clear vision for a better press--one that both is more accountable and one that holds power more accountable too. His desire for quality news and quality programming is infectious, as he cogently and smartly explains where CNN and the rest of the news business must go in order to survive.

On Tuesday of this week, Klein gave a keynote address to the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. He had a lot of advice for the news business, including five specific points to improve journalism in the U.S.

It was his fourth point, though, that will have the most relevance for D.C.'s journalism community:

We need to police ourselves, to set clear standards of behavior and ethics for those who would call themselves journalists. When the Jeff Gannon bomb exploded in the White House press room, where was the White House Correspondents' Association?

Their board proudly voted to stay out of the fray, to remain out of the business of credentialing members of the White House press corps. They say that's the job of the White House. The White House is quick to say it's not their job to decide who's a reporter. And they're right. It's our job. At least, it's our self-interest.

When a fake reporter infiltrates the White House press corps, who suffers most? The White House? No, the press corps. Because it's another reason for the public not to believe what they see and hear. It turns "The Gaggle" into a gag. And a bad one at that.

I have a modest proposal for The White House Correspondents Association, whose annual black-tie gala I eagerly await next week: cancel the gala, and instead spend that time and energy creating standards--and enforcing them--for those who would call themselves White House correspondents.

(Klein's complete five points, if you're interested, are after the jump.)

First: Report the news; dig up facts--those are in short supply, and the audience is hungry for them.

That might sound painfully obvious, but we've all grown up in a time in the business in which the conventional wisdom was to seem LESS like news and more like entertainment. Now, we did need to get away from the days when the Old Boys Network looked down their nose at any story that was interesting--but we all know in our hearts that the dumbing down and infotainment-ization of the news has gone way too far. Too much 'tainment. Not enough info. There's no reason to watch a newscast if there's not much news in it.

Second: stay away from innuendo and opinion in your news reporting. Columbia's Project for Excellence in Journalism revealed some startling data last month about bias in television news. They found that Fox News allows opinion to creep in to their reports in 7 out of 10 segments. Seventy percent of the time. Some of the other networks had opinion in four out of ten segments. CNN, they found, allowed opinion to slip into only 1 out of 10 reports. But even that 1 bugs me.

The third thing we need to do in restoring the credibility of real journalism: cover what matters. In these days of literally millions of choices at the audience's fingertips, your deal with your viewer is 15 seconds with an option to renew. We have to prove ourselves constantly--earning trust and loyalty by the quality and indispensability of the information we put out there. The audience is busy--they have no time for stuff that doesn't matter.

That's not high-flown idealism--it's good business backed up by empirical fact. When I was running The FeedRoom, a broadband video company, we were delivering close to one million news video clips per day to online viewers, across sites we built for NBC, Tribune, Reuters, USA Today and others. We could measure precisely which stories these hard-core news viewers--mostly educated males 25-44--were watching. You would be astounded at the clear flight to quality--these guys avoid sensational stories like Paris Hilton avoids a real job. And they avoid day two of just about any story--they have an insatiable appetite for the latest. They're busy. They got it. Move on. And tell me all the other things that are going on in the world--the Internet surfaces so many stories in the course of a day that it's made the television menu seem pathetically narrow. That 53% mistrust might be another way of saying we've lost their respect--they can't take seriously anyone who spends all day camped out at the Michael Jackson trial instead of covering any of the dozens of other stories they know are out there. Oh, they'll tune in for the verdict--because it's the latest--but until then, they'll punish us for being stuck in the mindset of 70's local TV news.

Fourth: we need to police ourselves, to set clear standards of behavior and ethics for those who would call themselves journalists. When the Jeff Gannon bomb exploded in the White House press room, where was the White House Correspondents Association? Their board proudly voted to stay out of the fray, to remain out of the business of credentialing members of the White House press corps. They say that's the job of the White House. The White House is quick to say it's not their job to decide who's a reporter. And they're right. It's our job. At least, it's our self-interest. When a fake reporter infiltrates the White House press corps, who suffers most? The White House? No, the press corps. Because it's another reason for the public not to believe what they see and hear. It turns "The Gaggle" into a gag. And a bad one at that. I have a modest proposal for The White House Correspondents Association, whose annual black-tie gala I eagerly await next week: cancel the gala, and instead spend that time and energy creating standards--and enforcing them--for those who would call themselves White House correspondents.

Unless we get much tougher on ourselves, we're doomed to the irrelevance some observers have predicted for or wished upon us. I mean, last week the Federal Communications Commission had to admonish broadcasters to clearly label those VNR's they get from government or corporate sources. Isn't that embarrassing? The FCC of all people needing to remind newspeople of the most basic journalistic standards?

Fifth and finally: be clear about who you are. Make sure the audience knows what you're doing to deliver useful information and hard facts instead of opinion or entertainment. Because they're not really paying that close attention to all the wonderful work we're doing day in and day out. They're bombarded by literally millions of media choices per day.

And the way to cut through the cacophony is not to shout above the wind, to insist even louder that the audience listen to us. Exactly the opposite--we need to make sure we listen to them. Because in the digital world, the audience gives us the answer--no matter where in the media environment they wander, we can follow their tracks very clearly. And it's obvious that, whether it's iPod or eBay or Amazon or yes, even CNN, they embrace brands that deliver quality time after time. They seek out brands that earn their trust and stick with brands that re-earn it every day. They flock to quality. Why run the other way?