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David Axelrod left a shrinking Chicago Tribune — and journalism — because he wasn't satisfied doing the job less well than he thought he could.

He had been covering a political race, but found out a few days after submitting his interview with one of the candidates that his quotes had been combined with another reporter's, who interviewed the opponent, like a short summary story. When he asked his editor about it, he had been told that they didn't have the space anymore.

"I saw the harbinger of change coming even back then. I knew that it was going to be different," said Axelrod ­— President Barack Obama's former senior advisor — speaking before a Salt Lake City crowd for the annual McCarthey Family Foundation Lecture Series, which focuses on journalism. He spoke at Rowland Hall in front of about 200 people.

Axelrod described how competitive pressures and production challenges from his early days in journalism have only intensified with the advent of the Internet, and lamented a loss of accuracy in favor of speed.

"[My Tribune editor] had a sign on his wall... 'If your mother says she loves you, check it out.' Meaning, make sure what you write is true, is factual, is accurate," Axelrod said.

He lamented that the sign in today's newsrooms would more likely read "Get there first, we can fix it later."

"But I don't tell these stories to be a grumpy old man reminiscing about the good old days," he said. "I tell them because I was raised in a journalism with values... that are worth fighting for even as the news industry changes."

Technology connects far-flung corners the globe, makes a wealth of information available to people in remote places and empowers people to "circulate their own journalism." But as democratizing as the Internet is, Axelrod warned against its atomizing potential. With so many options, people gravitate toward the outlets that they agree with.

"What I would do if I were you," he said, addressing an attendee's question about the future of journalism, "... choose a place where you can read a widespread kind of spectrum of opinion so you can form an educated opinion of your own instead of being told where to go."

He also cautioned against the Internet and cable news station's hunger for controversy, treating "every day like election day, and [that] every day is seismic in importance ­— until it's not."

For instance, he pointed to his time serving on Obama's administration during the 2010 Mexican Gulf oil spill. The media referred to it as Obama's Hurricane Katrina, a defining event of his presidency. And yet it didn't come up as a significant issue in the 2012 elections, Axelrod said.

"But in that moment, the country was in a frenzy because they were told by the media again and again... [that it was a] defining issue," Axelrod said.

More recently, he decried the anxiety that media outlets hyped from the beginning about the Ebola virus spreading in the U.S. It's a crisis for Africa, but not here, he said, adding that the average American has as much chance of catching Ebola as winning the Powerball.

News deserves more perspective than what scanning Twitter can offer, he later argued.

"This transition's going to be tough. It's going to take a while to figure out how to operate a newsroom in this new environment," he said. But he is hopeful for the future.

He became a grandfather to a little girl 10 days ago. He figures that she won't have a print newspaper to read when she's older.

"But the desire for the content you find in newspapers won't vanish. Those news organizations that adapt and reinvent themselves in this digital age and develop a robust presence online can thrive again."

Local newspapers' unique content will attract viewers and advertisers who are switching rapidly from print to digital — and while it's expensive to pay for printing and circulation, eliminating those costs will give newspapers more money to pay for good journalism, Axelrod said.

"There's much to embrace in this future. As someone who ran a campaign about change, I'm not going to stand here and complain about it now."

Twitter: @mikeypanda