“It’s too late to be training new journalists in the classic mode. Instead, journalism should become a required course, one or two semesters for every graduate. Why? Because journalism like everything else that used to be centralized is in the process of being distributed. In the future, every educated person will be a journalist, as today we are all travel agents and stock brokers. The reporters have been acting as middlemen, connecting sources with readers, who in many cases are sources themselves. As with all middlemen, something is lost in translation, an inefficiency is added. So what we’re doing now, in journalism, as with all other intermediated professions, is decentralizing. So it pays to make an investment now and teach the educated people of the future the basic principles of journalism.”

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.