Journalism educators must get out of the mindset that reporting will always be valuable. Executives must get out of the mindset that the difficulty and expense of journalism equals value. Journalists must get out of the mindset that their (our) skills are valuable in and of themselves.
This isn’t to dispute the validity of those mindsets; to a greater or lesser extent, they are true. But we have to get out the frame of mind where we have value and into one where we create value.
This is the heart of the entrepreneurial journalism upswell. It is the heart of trying to teach students and working journalists not only new media skills, but an appreciation of the possibilities and an awareness of each medium’s utility. Not to mention engendering a willingness to suspend the natural curmudgeonry of any old guard and to look at new media as possibilities for new and improved journalism, not as fads or toys or immanent dangers to the craft.
