The future of journalism and the exchange of information via social networking are a topic journalists talk about every day. In this age of a barrage of instant news overwhelming Internet users, it’s hard to find one’s place as a news source on the Web. Josh Benton, Rayne native, presidential scholar, former reporter for the Dallas Morning News and director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, talks to Duke University’s Sally Hicks in an interview in Faith and Leadership, Duke’s Divinity School journal.
Benton’s conclusion — make it new:
You have to give that new organization permission to destroy the old organization. You can’t have that new organization thinking, “Oh, this is what is smart, but we can’t do it because it wouldn’t be good for the parent organization.” You have to give them permission to completely innovate and approach things in a new way.
and make it remarkable:
the key is to produce things that are remarkable, because if something is remarkable then people will want to remark upon it to their friends and colleagues. Create content that begs to be spread around in a social media context, the kinds of things that people are going to say, “Wow, this is great,” and share it with their friends on Facebook or retweet on Twitter.
Now the only problem is to figure out how to make the wild and free Web profitable. Any thoughts out there? Feel free to comment, Facebook it, and tweet away.