Those are the words from Tribune’s Sam Zell to the Orlando Sentinel staff as he tries to fire up the Tribune troops around the country during his tour of the companies beleaguered holdings.

The audacity!

Does Zell want to innovate? Does he want to forget the past? Does he want take risks?

It sure sounds like it. Zell doesn’t like losing, and that’s the mindset journalists need. There has been a malaise over the industry for years as employees have set into a losing mindset.

Everyone believes the demise of newspapers is inevitable. So why try? Why innovate?

If that’s our attitude, I got news for everyone: we will lose. We will fail miserably.

We will fail ourselves, our jobs, our coworkers — our democracy. Me? I’d rather win.

I’d rather give it everything I have. I’d rather innovate. I’d rather make journalism that matters.

We have to get rid of this good-enough-because-second-place-is-acceptable mindset. Good enough is for people who will never taste greatness. Second place is for losers.

It’s time to be winners. It’s time to get out of this coma. It’s time to say why not?

Why not be the best? Why can’t we win?

“I don’t care what happened in the past,” Zell said. “The bottom line is meritocracy.”

Meritocracy? That is bold for an industry built on union values of rewarding time served, not on talent or innovation.

But it’s time for bold moves, because that’s the only way to win.

“My head is focused on the future,” Zell said. “It does not turn 180 degrees.”

Forget the past. It’s time to start a revolution.

If you’re a journalist and you’re not on WiredJournalists.com what are you doing?

Well get on it!

Wired Jouralists is a social network dedicated to helping journalists get wired. It’s filled with wired journalists like myself who want to help our non-wired colleagues. Why?

Because we believe in journalism, and we want to make journalism better. The best way to make better journalism is to have journalists with more skills.

Got questions on how to do something? Wired Journalists has plenty of journalists who can help you out. Need help starting a blog? Wired Journalists can help.

Need help learning multimedia? Wired Journalists can help. Need help learning Web design? Well, you get the picture.

It’s a Web site that just makes sense for the modern-day reality of journalism. Most newsrooms do not provide in-house training, and few are willing to send employees out for training. And j-schools? Don’t get me started on them.

But much of new media can be learned in ones own time. The problem is that many people don’t know where to start, and that’s where Wired Journalists comes in. It’s filled with all different kinds of journalists from all over the world with varying skill sets who want to help each other out.

There are discussion groups dedicated to certain topics like video and social networking, for instance. It’s the beginning of the turn of the tide for journalism job training. Most employers won’t help, but we can help ourselves and save journalism from itself.

It’s also a great networking application and an even better way to share what journalism projects each of us is working on.

Much thanks to Ryan Sholin, Howard Owens and Zac Echola for creating the site.

And while you’re on WiredJournalists.com, stop and say hi.

Visit Wired Journalists