Danny L. McDaniel
Lafayette, Indiana

When I look at EveryBlock, another of Adrian Holovaty’s works, I tend to believe he was energized by his encounter with journalists. I know I was.

In fact Patrick, you are posting your comment to a blogger who is a journalist.

An open minded one pursuing the future. They exist.

Think about it.

Here’s another one..

The Arrogant Madness of Revolution

“How dare he try to change our beloved craft, even if it is in the shitter!”

“I know, you’d have to be arrogant to try to change somebody’s craft! Nobody does that.
Revolutionize journalism? Pah-lease. Gimme a break.”

“And how dare he call us out on our bullshit, we’re the ones in charge!”

“I know, you’d have to be crazy to speak truth to power! Everybody knows that.
Democratize communication? Pah-lease. Gimme a break.”

It’s so weird – my past experience at the Inquirer and Daily News sounds more like Adrian Holovaty’s at the various news orgs he worked at – co-workers were HUNGRY to find out how evolve. Sure, some friction, but it was executive focus on immediate ROI or managing risk that kept things from moving forward at a faster clip.

I like the “Multimedia Multiversity.” idea.

I’m curious as to whether there are a growing number of courses that cover the intersection between computer programming and reporting. To my mind, the world needs a hell of a lot more people with Adrian Holovaty ’s skill set.

And I do not kid when I say I’ love to see MIT Open Courseware-like availability of these courses. It was information made freely available online that led me to my software engineering career. I am thankful for it.

Once upon a time, there was an elephant in a room full of journalists.
These journalists were very stubborn, arrogant, and some were extremely elitist.

This elephant was a poor elephant
but had a knack for making accurate predictions about what was going to happen.

Often times, this elephant would try in vain to warn these journalists in the room – to help them.

And, occasionally, this elephant would even appear to be completely wrong at first
but would actually end up being completely correct – after a couple of months or years had passed.

Some of the journalists in power would actually make it a point to punish this elephant
for daring to speak the truth to them – in anyway they could.

And sometimes they would even steal his ideas while presenting them as their own.

Most of the other journalists would simply ignore this elephant altogether,
as if he wasn’t there or simply didn’t exist.

A few of the younger interns in this room, however, were quietly listening
and would secretly give this elephant a little food money so he wouldn’t starve to death.

Finally the elephant decided to give up on trying to help these journalists anymore.
The room they were in was on fire, and was sure to burn down to the ground.

Before the elephant left the room with some of the younger interns
he tried once more to reason with the journalists to save their lives.

“You’re all going to die unless you take my advice now,” the elephant remarked,
“This room wouldn’t have even caught fire if you had simply listened to my advice in the first place.”

“Fuck you,” replied one of the older journalists in charge
before promptly crossing his arms and turning around to face the opposite direction.

The elephant left the room as it burned with all it’s occupants to the ground.

“Oh well,” thought the elephant as he walked to the bar with the young interns, “At least I tried my best.”

The elephant may not have had the journalists’ respect or even enough money to pay his bills
but at least he had his life, his youth, and enough pocket change to buy a beer.

Very interesting.

Was it by any chance inspired by this lil’ ditty that I wrote last Tuesday?
http://www.lightstalkers.org/how-to-save-the-new-york-times

I’d be willing to bet that it was.

I also might have about a half-dozen or more “sustainable” ideas
that I’ve yet to publish.

Eventually somebody with smarts will pay me for them.

I’ve got really high hopes for the ones we picked.

mark

Glad to hear the judging went well. My Online Journalism class at Columbia College Chicago just presented final projects at Google Chicago yesterday. It was awesome. It’s always so inspiring to see kids thinking about journalism in new ways and then making them real. I just launched the official site for our own, less ambitious, journalism incubator this morning: http://www.j-incubator.net We’ve been using it internally to host the student’s projects. Now they’re live, so it’s live.

Keep up the fantastic work,
Dan

Sounds like some great ideas. However, it would be even more interesting to hear the business models proposed. The professor’s bias against paid content is well documented; were any of the students nevertheless bold enough to suggest a paid model?

Kind regards,
Evan

bob wyman