From Rework:

“I don’t have enough time/money/people/experience.” Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you’ve got. There’s no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

This a common complaint in the media world—I’m even guilty of it myself—but not having enough [fill in the blank here] should never be an excuse. It doesn’t take a lot of time/money/people/experience to:

Produce a well-designed, user-friendly site – Wordpress, Drupal, and other open source products have eliminated the need for outside vendors. So why are so many publishers still using them? The open source stuff is easier to use. Big publishers are often distracted by a vendor’s glamorous sales pitch. But what usually happens when the deal is done? You’re left with a cookie cutter site that none of your editors know how to use. It doesn’t take much to make a site functional. Users care less about the bells and whistle and more about functionality and content.

Produce quality content – Journalists are used to getting paid little to nothing. It may not be right, but it’s the truth. So don’t act like hiring someone to write a 300 word article at 30¢ a word is going to break the bank. Try taking it from your salary. If you believed in your product, you would. There are a lot of well-trained writers out there who are happy just to get a byline.

Market your brand – If you produce quality content, that’s marketing enough. If readers like what you have to say and you produce enough of it on a regular basis, they’ll come back and they’ll tell their friends. It’s that simple. Despite the distractions of the Internet, humans are still creatures of habit. Make yourself part of your reader’s habits by giving them what they want and need: good content.

Connect with your readers – Social media tools like Twitter and Facebook are great ways to get feedback from your audience. Implemented a new product on your Web site? Ask your fans. Want to know if a story was well received? Ask yours followers. Believe me, they’ll tell you. And if they don’t? You have your answer.

Clay Shirky at Pop! Tech 2008 (Creative Commons License via Pop!Tech)

I’m currently rereading Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky, a must-read for any journalist who wants to remain employable/understand what the hell is happening to our profession. The book chronicles how Web 2.0 technologies are revolutionizing our world and the way we socialize with one another via these technologies. Flipping through the pages, pen in hand, it’s hard not to have an “ah-ha” moment with every sentence. Shirky gets it; why can’t the rest of us?

With this last read-through, Shirky struck me the most by comparing today’s journalists to the scribes of the early 1400s. Back in the day scribes did something that was rare; they wrote. They were the keepers of our society’s memories. “The scribe was the only bulwark against great intellectual loss.” Yet the invention of moveable type in the late 1400s made scribes nearly obsolete over time. The ability to write was no longer rare.

This comparison isn’t shocking. In fact, many other professionals have alluded to similar analogies in the past. What I find interesting and somewhat comical about Shirky’s comparison though, was his reference to Johannes Trithemius, the Abbott of Sponheim and defender of the scribe. In 1492, the Abbott published a book entitled De Laude Scriptorum, which outlined the benefits of the scribal tradition.

The Abbot’s position would have been mere reactionary cant (“We must preserve the old order at any cost”) but for one detail. If, in the year 1492, you’d written a treatise you wanted widely disseminated, what would you do? You’d have it printed, of course, which was exactly what the Abbot did…. The content of the Abbot’s book praised the scribes, while its printed form damned them; the medium undermined the message.

This example is both funny and sad because the mentality/fear behind it still holds true today. Although the example I’m about to describe doesn’t fit Shirky’s example exactly, it does call to mind a certain mentality among some journalists. On April 21, 2009, New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd poked a little fun at Twitter. The article was centered around her quest to find out “if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention.” Dowd asked the company’s founders to limit their answers to 140 characters, and questions ranged from “Did you know you were designing a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls?” to “Why did you call the company Twitter instead of Clutter?”

Dowd’s opinion and the Abbot’s are similar in the fact that they both used technology to express their hatred for technology to end users. Ok, so Dowd didn’t use Twitter, but the story was posted online, which is the technological platform that allows Twitter to exist at all. She also poked fun of bloggers who bash the micro-blogging site by stating, “Isn’t that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?” This comment proves that not only is Dowd afraid of Twitter, she’s afraid of all technological change that disrupts the status quo.

But this story isn’t about Dowd. Her comments have long passed. But it’s just a matter of time before another journalist replaces them with their own fearful words. I can think of more than a handful of  journalists who have damned technology while at the same time used it to promote their work. Print snobs claim that the Internet is destroying good journalism. This point is somewhat valid, however, just because something is in print doesn’t make it good journalism (Us Weekly). Good journalism can be done across multiple platforms. And great journalists should be able to recognize this. What print snobs refuse to see is how these new technologies could truly benefit our profession in the end, and dare I say, mankind. We need amateurs to keep us on our toes, because let’s face it, many journalists think their shit is amazing. But listen up shit lovers; no one’s shit’s amazing. We are the new scribes. But we should be acting more like the new printing presses.

KLUGE from Northern Lights on Vimeo.

The comment came from a fellow journalist, and I couldn’t help but think that this person is a) living in an alternate reality, and b) may soon find themselves without a job.

I agree with this person, to a certain extent, that Facebook, Twitter and Myspace may die off in the years to come. “May” being the operative word. But they will only to be replaced by something else. True, the Internet is always evolving, but that doesn’t mean that social media will cease to exist. It will just change its form. And it is ignorant to think otherwise.

It is this type of mentality that has brought journalism to the place that it is right now. When will fellow journalists learn that we no longer control what is important, what is newsworthy? The general public, now more than ever, decides what they want to know about and when. And don’t for one second think they will get tired of that control. Don’t think for one second that social media is just a fad. This is just the beginning.

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All of the presenters talked about using education to prevent further genocides and atrocities from happening again. Here are a few quotes from the day:

“Life is not made up of years, but of moments. Let every moment guide your conduct.” – Elie Wiesel

“Deeply in every person, the forces of light and darkness do battle. When the darker forces prevail, the capacity for evil rises. That must always be remembered and opposed” – former President Bill Clinton

“In a way, to remember is to survive, and we have to survive to remember” – Israeli President Shimon Peres in a special dedication video

As I was leaving the dedication, I saw a group neo-Nazi protesters standing on the corner waving Nazi flags as the dedication attendees drove past. I took a few photos as I waited for the light to change (see below) because I couldn’t believe what was happening. I saw one of the male protesters signal the Hitler salute to a car that pulled up next to him. And it was disturbing to see the American flag portrayed right next to the Nazi flag as if it’s a patriotic duty to hate.

After a few seconds of processing what I had just seen, especially after the moving ceremony, I just started to cry on my way home. Today’s protesters are only small representation of a much larger problem. We would like to think that our world has come a long way since Nazi Germany, but there is still so much hate in this world. And it is infecting humanity.

We see hate happen every day when we treat illegal immigrants with disrespect and contempt, or when we secretly mock an interracial couple. The list could go on. Although I am not guilty of the examples above, I have shown hate unknowingly in my own way when I’ve talked badly about someone behind their back or watched as someone I knew acted in a hateful manner and didn’t say anything.

Today’s events reminded me that humanity is capable of anything and it’s up to each one of us to prevent the spread of hate and anger, because life is so much more pleasant when it’s filled with love and peace.

I’m only 24 with a limited amount of journalism experience in comparison to the industry heavy-weights, so I don’t exactly know how to answer the question to its fullest. The way to become famous as a magazine writer has definitely changed drastically with the Internet–and probably not for the better. Most writers and editors nowadays must be comfortable being on camera. At least that’s what Northwestern told me. If so, this adds a new element to to the mix.

Ok… so let’s think about this. Good writer, great pitches and a pretty face? Wait, I thought us print journalists picked print because we were afraid of the camera? It was always easy to spot the broadcast journalists in grad school. They enunciated their words. They brushed their hair AND wore clothes. Bastards. Although most of them were my friends, I secretly made fun of them for what we “printies” called “selling their soul.” But it seems that in today’s world, I’m the one who must bite my tongue if I want to make in this industry. Because cross-platform also means (in addition to some serious Web skills) having a face for the camera. Wait… so I have to sell MY soul? Damn it. Looks like the broadcasters will have the last laugh.

While I’m totally down for changing with the times–and I’m actually pretty comfortable in front of the camera–I wonder about those brilliant writers who deserve some serious recognition, but aren’t cross-platform and don’t do well in front of the camera. I guess there’s always the New Yorker (David Standish’s answer to everything).

In the end though, for me, it’s really not about being famous. When you are young, being famous and whatnot, seems important. But over time, that kind of stuff doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I always figured I’d be a broke journalist the rest of my life–eventually turning tricks to make ends meet. I would be happy if I accumulated a small following of fans–perhaps they only subscribe to my blog out of pity, but who has to know? It’s all about feeling proud of your work, and developing a clear and distinct voice. That’s all I could ask for.

I’m reminded of the Cat Power song “The Greatest”:

Once I wanted to be the greatest
No wind of waterfall could stall me
And then came the rush of the flood
Stars of night turned deep to dust

Just for kicks, check out my mad skills on camera below. Don’t mind my extra 10 pounds–that’s what grad school does to someone. Crap, I’m already sounding like a broadcaster. Someone slap me.