Totally insane:Jack Shafer
writes about changes in journalism: (emp add)
What [veteran journalist Mark] Sullivan got absolutely right in 1938 is that technology, culture, business, and audience tastes are always in flux, making it the job of writers young and old to grab the best available tools and get to the business of chronicling the world. If Sullivan were alive today, I'll bet he'd be encouraging journalists to study PHP and Javascript, to hone their video-cutting skills, and to learn how to manipulate databases.
Journalists getting into PHP and Javascript? Why not style sheets as well?
What is Shafer thinking? Yes, the Internet does use things like PHP, Javascript, server side includes, image compression techniques, AJAX technology and more. But unless the journalist is running his or her own website, it will be of little value. There is no way the New York Times is going to allow one of its journalists permission to wing it on a subsection of their website. No way at all.
posted by Quiddity at 7/01/2009 07:45:00 PM
Writing html is much, much easier than actually researching a story so the majority of working "journalists" would naturally gravitate toward it.
It's just like how journalists back then were masters at setting up and running giant Heidelberg offset presses.
or learn how to operate a linotype. Rarely do you hear such a stupid statement from someone claiming related expertise.
