It sounded like a neologism that could become common currency in the debate about technology's impact on news, jobs and institutions: "parajournalism".
It fell from the lips of Kevin Marsh, creator of this website and its editor until he left the BBC last week. He was referring to the plethora of news and information sources that threaten the authority and professional skills of journalists in traditional roles.
Marsh was on a panel, chaired by Raymond Snoddy, convened to launch a book on the future of journalism. And he was bullish about its future, with the caveat that the term needs to resist wider and vaguer definitions to fit with technological changes.
For Marsh, journalism is "a very specialised activity", culturally vital but "only a part of the information universe" and characterised by "persistence, honesty, judgment and moral salience" - just as it always was, whatever else is going on around it.
On the other side of Snoddy, and the other side of the debate, sat Laura Oliver, community coordinator for Guardian News and Media, and Judith Townend, a freelance journalist now doing a PhD on the subject.
Oliver works with readers' input to the Guardian, and Townend is up to speed on all the new technologies. But neither claimed to have a vision of how the redefining of journalism, as job, business or creative activity, is going to turn out:
"We need to come up with some solutions," said Townend, "because the ones we have got aren't tenable."
Marsh's characterisation of the output of much new media as "gossip with the volume turned up" chimed with the mood of the assembled company. Newsreader Martin Lewis, in the audience, sounded appalled at the declining audience for the main television news programmes - only a quarter of Britain's adult population, he calculated.
But another audience member, Pete Clifton, former new media boss for BBC News, pointed out that 15 million people turned to the BBC News website on the day of the Japan earthquake.
If it's a question of how to pay for journalism in an everything-for-free online world, Marsh said there's probably £10 billion a year in the British broadcast market, which should be enough to pay for the odd piece of solid work. He said too many BBC journalists are run off their feet, servicing so many BBC outlets that they barely have time to gather information.
But Townend could testify to the lack of funds for journalism: she's relieved her main job is now in academia, having witnessed and reported on the economic difficulties the industry faces.
Some of those present in the room above a London restaurant on a chilly Tuesday night were journalists who had contributed the 31 chapters of the book that was being launched. The experience did not encourage them to look to the world of education as a source of revenue or a swanky lifestyle. John Mair of Coventry University, co-editor of the book, had been as good as his word when he cajoled their scripts, promising only a free book and a glass of wine as payment.
But how can research and writing maintain its value when it has become so easy? It took me only two clicks to find that "parajournalism" is not, in fact, a new word. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it was first used in 1965, when it meant "journalism that is heavily coloured by the opinions of the reporter". Perhaps Marsh has at least revived it with a new meaning.
Face the Future: Tools for the Modern Media Age, edited by John Mair and Richard Lance Keeble, is published this week by Abramis.
