An Ode to Old School….

I had a vision for a post that would be an Ode To Old School. The introduction is below – but alas, travel and work combined to = no time for blogging. I’m sure you can understand. The most valuable part of the post, however, was very easy. The responses from my Twitter followers is invaluable.

Nobody likes a journalism curmudgeon. This post is not a defense of those characters. But I also don’t want to be a new media curmudgeon. Without a doubt I am on the web side of things. Some might even describe my views as that of a web radical (although I use my M.S. from Columbia’s J-school to disguise myself sometimes). While I am critical of old school journalism from time to time, I try to keep it constructive. Indeed, I often say “I have constructive criticism for both sides of the old/new conversation.” Along with my criticism, I recognize there are positive traits from traditional news organizations and practices. I don’t accept anything as a given but Tom Rosenstiel identified these eight attributes (pdf download) which are a good place to start. I think there could be a discussion about whether or not these attributes are STRICTLY the realm of old media (I’d argue new media folk can tackle them as well) but that old school media has typically been a guardian for these attributes merits praise.

Journalists provide the facts.
They make sense of what is happening.
They stand as watchdog
They show up and bear witness.
They can be forum leaders in engaging the community.
They aggregate and distill information for the audience to digest.
They empower the audience.
As more and more people become citizen journalists, they provide a role model for how
news reporting is done.

Don’t take my word for it (a Reading Rainbow) check out what my Tweeple said