However, I still believe that people develop talent through hard work and mentoring. Society will find new ways to pay journalists, and the organizations that figure out these new revenue streams won’t just wait for “cream to rise” – they will pay journalists and cultivate their talents. Perhaps non-profits will take their place.

In my experience, the Internet is not a place that promotes diversity. I believe that when people are bemoaning the demise of traditional journalism, they are not bemoaning the quality of writing, but the loss of a common frame of reference, that made interacting between different citizens easier. I work in a school, and while I enjoy this blog, and many others, it is difficult to talk to my colleagues about it, because they have no reference to it. Any discussion is superficial because they have no vested interest in the topics it covers. Contrast this with the historic daily newspaper. Daily papers had a large number of sections, with many different stories. Because of the limited diversity in the paper, a discussion between my colleagues and I can meander through the paper, as we saw it, until we find a topic that we both have thoughts on. Meaningful dialogue can now occur and a relationship can be built.

I do not know where this will leave our democratic society as a whole, but as the cost of energy continues to increase, I have a small fear of a return to a type of dark ages. If the only people I know who are interested in a cause live in Boston, New Delhi and Shanghai it is less feasible for me to gather with them and actually do something. And doing is an important part of a vibrant society. It was enshrined in the US constitution that the right of the people peaceably to assemble shall not be abridged. The assembly of people is what the Internet might be killing, not good writing.

Now considered the decline of journalism, rise of blogging, decline in quality writing, etc. all due to derivative work or some interpretation of the Internet being (or not) “free”. Now try and put this on the other end of the spectrum and labelled it where the 2.0 mechanisms producing negative results.

We can immediately call attention to the problem: The comparison is not valid as the spectrum is not the same. As in, the issue of decline in journalism has nothing to do with the 2.0 mechanisms at all. The 2.0 mechanisms merely highlighted the fact that what we used to attribute to “good” journalism are simply a reflection of the lack of peer review. Think about it, what was good journalism? Some person wrote something, got reviewed by a single (or a few) editors, got published, and we called those good journalism. The truth is that the majority of what was written (and published) in the past were rubbish. 2.0 mechanisms merely point out that fact.

In regards to the way we educate our students, despite changes that I heard a friend recently describe as “glacier-like,” I think that the web has created an undercurrent that I believe will evolve into a meaningful change.

On the topic of media, I believe that the cream still rises to the top and with the web these writers are actually able to reach a far wider audience. The problem is weeding through the poor quality stuff that is out there.

I guess I will choose connectedness over disconnectedness.
I’ll take the good, the bad, and what Stager says because within all that I am able to get some pretty good stuff a lot easier than I could have just a few years back.

With the web, like most innovations, people find meaningful uses that can have a dramatic effect on the world. However, there will always be others that find less constructive uses and even destructive uses for innovation. There are certainly plenty of examples in history of this.

Disaster will only come when those with meaningful messages are silenced. What problems did journalism and free lance writing solve?

I just read a blog by Seth Godin who talks about the future of libraries, http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/the-future-of-the-library.html. I think it’s time to re-think how we teach children about digital resources yes, it’s time to be more open to accepting Wikipedia and similar media as factual. Vetted yes of course, but who’s holding the New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Fox News, CNN et al accountable.

The blogosphere came at a time when there was a real media and information vacuum and its done a great job of filling that void. It’s become the voice of the people and its empowered a generation of young writers and readers.

As a physics teacher I used to consider writing as belonging more to the ‘humanities’ than to the sciences. In the physics classroom writing had to be concise and impersonal mostly constrained to a lab report. It was not until I had my 9th grade students create their own blogs that I started to realize how much I had to unlearn!

Reading Clive Thompson on the New Literacy took me to explore Andrea Lunsford’s Stanford Study of Writing findings and a fascinating PEW report on Writing, Technology and Teens

I don’t believe that the web is destroying writing. The web is transforming culture and it is our responsibility as educators to tap into the students willingness to write, to nurture it, to guide them and be willing to learn along the way.