Jeff Jarvis, a media critic, consultant and blogger, has a must-read (at least for me) article in yesterday’s Guardian (Use BugMeNot to get around the annoying registration):
[M]ainstream news is under assault by scandals, declining credibility, shrinking audience, disappearing advertising dollars, exploding online competition … and those darned bloggers.So newsrooms are at last getting serious about plugging into the internet. Last week, the New York Times announced it is merging its print and online news operations. In their staff announcement, executives said this ends a separation that “allowed our digital operation to flourish, to experiment”, so now they can “raise digital journalism to the next level” – and, one hopes, so they can electrify old journalism as well. At the same time, CBS News has decreed that all its 1,500 journalists will now feed the internet. Take it from me: that’s easier announced than accomplished.
Traditional journalism’s gradual merging with online journalism is inevitable. People are plugged in to computers, and wireless will only become cheaper. Old school journalists have little choice in the matter, so Jarvis gives seven suggestions on how to be a “digital” journalist. I agree with all except the first: burn the business cards.
He may be referring to an attitude more than cards per se, but they’ve proved invaluable for me as I visit blogger conferences and meet others. Instead of scribbling blog URLs on pieces of paper, people can hand out basic business cards containing the information. Some like to include e-mail and physical addresses and phone numbers; others list only their names and URLs.
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(Cross-posted on The Language Artist)
