Howard Rheingold - one of the Heroes of the Net™ - gives a commencement speech to the Stanford Communication Department today. It warns of the forces working to own every idea, and points to wikipedia and ohmynews as positive examples.
Towards the beginning he says:
If your calling is journalism, you enter the job market at the same time that that the long and honorable history of American journalism is traveling through the digestive tract of the disinfotainment industry. But at the same time, you arrive on the scene just at the moment something broader, faster, and perhaps more democratic than the invention of journalism is emerging.
He closes:
I know that your education, the tools you have available, and most of all, your determination and enthusiasm constitute a formidable counter-force to the walls that are being built around creativity and discourse. I count on you to get out there and create. You can – you MUST -- innovate faster than your ability to innovate can be enclosed by laws, regulations, and technological fences.
The whole speech is here.
Posted
by D. Weinberger at June 13, 2004 07:53 AM
Comments
That sounds much more stirring than a less rosy take on it, which is "You're graduating just at a moment your jobs are being deskilled and outsourced, to a bunch of amateur bloggers who will work for Google Ads beer-money. So you better get on the ball, because your profession as you know it is going the way of cobblers and blacksmiths, to automation and replaceable labor"
I suppose this is why I'll never be a professional speaker ...
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein | June 13, 2004 01:49 PM