Be a mad media scientist

Perhaps the best advice someone from old media can give to children of new media is simply to dive in and try out new ideas. In this post from his media blog, Clay Shirky endorses the impulse to experiment. No one knows where journalism is going, but we do know it's not going away. Its reinvention is likely to be wholly unforeseen and, for a while at least, unforeseeable. That creates enormous opportunities for those willing to risk their time and talent in applying the tested and proven modes of the written word with emerging technologies.

Why bother?

A question I have sometimes asked myself is, Why teach journalism if newspapers are dying? Hey, wait--someone else has asked this question too? (see link below) In fact, nearly everyone who teaches journalism has formed some version of this question. And the answer? Oh, there are many. Mine: Because I'm paid to do it (cynical response) and because the world needs and wants journalism--it just doesn't fully appreciate that fact just yet (optimistic response). Also, newspapers are only a small part of the equation, and an increasingly small one at that. The many responses to this short article are worth wading through.