Here’s to the democratization of the web. A few key people tweeted this blog posting about The Next Twitter, and the story that never got published now comes up more often in searches associated with my name than anything else. I’m not sure what to make of it, really, except to be humbled. We who once called ourselves “gatekeepers” in the media really have lost our keys, it appears.
Here’s a sample of some of the stuff I saw:
http://twitter.tweetmeme.com/story/109651010/the-next-twitter-%C2%AB-winston-ross/
There’s a lot of irony here for me. A story about the power of Twitter that I couldn’t successfully sell I then sort of self-published and it got a lot of attention. But what it didn’t do is draw a paycheck, which is fine except I would never have put the effort into the story that I did if I didn’t think it was already pretty much sold. So, back to the future of journalism, then. Sure, we can disseminate information widely and quickly today, but who will create original content, invest the kind of time and energy involved in doing the kind of meaty reporting that doesn’t just involve aggregating someone else’s content or retweeting someone else’s post? It’s great that a bunch of people passed my piece around, but it also reminds me that paid journalism practitioners are increasingly scarce.
DaveDigerati said
Winston, even worse is that I ran across your well-written and conceived article where I couldn’t tweet it (lack of social tool buttons). Oh the irony! I hope you continue writing as I think you are very good at it, persist and market yourself and who knows, Mashable or RWW might pick you up as a paid journalist?…
DaveDigerati said
ps… where is the link on your blog to follow you on twitter?
winstonross said
Touche! Adding now. (Be warned; my tweets aren’t that great, yet.)
Bret Yager said
Hence the big question. Electronic journalism is great and the wave of the future, blah blah blah. But when is it going to PAY? Show me a business model that can stand on its own and I’ll gladly join.
David said
Journalism is kind of like music these days. Bands put out CDs to market their live performances instead of the other way around. It seems to me freelancers will have to make themselves into experts and go out on the speakers circuit. Amy Goodman has done it. Some photojournalists have done it. The alternative is make or inherit your money and do journalism on your own dime. One thing is certain. There is no going back.
Jobs Career Resume said
Fantastic Article and discussion. Really helpful. I have been following this for some days now and found it very good. Great Job !!!