Journalists everywhere are suffering over the agonizing death of our long-held models of print media, but a comparison of this year’s National Press Photographers Association Photojournalism Summit, which ended this weekend in Portland, to NPPA’s event last summer in Tampa, reveals one group of professionals who have rapidly leapt from denial to acceptance, bypassing the other stages of grief.

Evidence of the mass buy-in for multimedia was overwhelming, beginning with the fact that a multimedia track was added alongside the traditional still photography and television tracks, and reinforced when the meeting space for multimedia sessions became so overcrowded changes had to be made mid-workshop to move all multimedia to the largest ballroom. This represented an enormous philosophical shift compared to last year when the still vs. motion/sound debate left many anchored in tradition. Hats off to NPPA and multimedia organizer Seth Gitner from Roanoke.com for getting this very, very right. A highlight of the event that was enrollment limited was the four-day multimedia immersion program that attracted an amazing range of participants including folks like Pulitzer-Prize winning L.A. Times photojournalist Carolyn Cole. You can take a look at the work the immersion students created here.

I took away a handful of themes from the summit, which are, in no particular order:
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