Tonight I met Adrian Holovalty, one of the younger innovative minds in journalism. I was familiar with his work and excited to hear him speak.
Lately in conversation with people I’ve been asking this question. "What is a journalist?"
I’ve formulated what I believe to be the short, to the point, answer, but it’s always a good conversation starter and interesting to hear other people’s first response.
I ask because I’m tired of the "citizen journalist," "blogger," "profesiona journalist," "coder/techie" distinction. We are all journalists.
Is there a new breed of journalist for the web? A Journerd?
I’ve boiled my answer down to one sentence, three words.
A "trafficker of information."
Journalists are in the information business. We traffic information. When information moved slowly, that meant putting it down on paper and sending it out through the mail. But information moves much faster. And a new-age journalist has to sift through a lot more — but their job is still fundamentally the same: People want the news fast, accurate and fair. So we gather, filter and present it.
During his talk, Adrian was speaking my language, from the second he called "reporting" "data," I knew I would get something out being in his audience. He showed a traditional journalist doing this job in three phases: Gathering information. Distilling information and presentation. And then he showed the new media journalist — the hard core coder/journalist (which is still rare).
It’s the same process, using different methods.
At NewAssignment.Net I’ve learned a bit about the mindset needed to create the types of sites Adrian was showing. I understand how to manipulate a content management system and have even helped design one on Drupal (skin and all). But unfortunately I do not have the skill set (yet) to make one myself.
When I take the time to think about it — the future seems wide open. The evolution in the exchange of information is rapidly increasing, soon we will be walking upright.
Also in attendance was Jonathan Dube from CyberJournalist, whom I’ve been a fan of and will be working with Assignment Zero to get us more editors (thanks John).