In a recent interview by Rocketboom, Dave Winer talked about making an introductory course in journalism a requirement for college students.
“Journalism is the new practice for Everyman, it’s what we all will be doing all the time in this new century. As the professional media pulls back, the citizens, you and me, need to fill in and replace every pro with 100 of us, to cover every school board meeting, every planning commission, defense contractor, civic organization. It’s like the Second Amendment for information and ideas. We need a well-informed electorate to make the tough decisions n our future.”
I’m not sure why professional meda would “pull back,” but I like this idea and see no reason why those of us that didn’t go to J-School can’t help cover some events that would otherwise go unreported. During my dozen years at KBOA, I covered every kind of event. Took my little cassette recorder, interviewed folks. Edited the audio. Wrote a little story. Put it on the radio. Could my reports have been more “professional.” Sure. But the listeners to our little station were just happy someone covered the event and reported it.
For my money, we could drop the Algebra requirement and replace it with Journalism 101.
If I had the time (and the nerve), it might be interesting to look at every story one of our networks did for the past 30 days. Put a check-mark beside every story that was “original”…that we didn’t get from an affiliate, a news releases, or from some other source.