Geneva Overholser made some Bay Area stops on her “manifesto tour,” including one at the San Jose Mercury News sponsored by the American Leadership Forum-Silicon Valley, a group of folks active in the community. (Full disclosure: I’m an ALF member.)

“On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change”  is a collection of ideas that might save American journalism. After reading the document and moderating the conversation with Geneva, I’d summarize her ideas this way:

Journalists change at a glacial rate, and that won’t work these days.

A bit more detail, from the manifesto:

“Given the self-important, tradition-bound craft we’re dealing with, questioning dogma does not come easily. Journalists have good reason to feel they are keepers of a sacred flame. But we’re bad at identifying which bits of our dogma are truly essential. Inverted pyramid and ink on paper? No. A commitment to public service and the fair representation of differing points of view? Yes. But what about ads on the front page: Are they a breach of that hallowed wall separating business and editorial Are journalists well-advised to run from anything smelling faintly of lobbying?….

“It is just such apparently heretical notions that we must open to light and air if we are to move forward. With the ground under foot unknown and fast-shifting, journalists must be bold enough to scrutinize our many inviolate principles….”

My favorite example of our unwillingness to change is our publishing page after valuable page of stock tables when many editors themselves haven’t turned to those pages in years, thanks to the Internet. You probably have your own example. So, read the manifesto for its specific ideas. But keep one headline in mind: We must be open to change.

P.S. That noble suggestion aside, I confess that I was disappointed to read today that my old newspaper, the Mercury News, may join the others that put advertising on the front page. I see it as a bad idea in terms of gravitas (there’s another old-fashioned idea), appearance and reduction of story count.