The shifting ground beneath our laden feet

The old media in India has still to come to terms with participatory media, user-generated content, newsroom blogs, etcetera. But in the US of A, where falling circulations  and plunging reader interest have resulted in introspection of the obscene kind, the traditional media is wrestling with the new world that we never thought would dawn so quickly and sink us even quicker, 24 X 7.

In this YouTube video, Phil Shapiro does a hilarious take on why the New York Times changed its font size and why the Washington Post has increased the number of letters to the editor from four to—yes!—five.

Link via Innovation in College Media

‘Silence is the most overrated virtue’

For decades she has had the honour of asking the first question at White House press conferences. Now, Helen Thomas, the grand old dame of Washington journalism, answers the Proust Questionnaire in this month’s Vanity Fair.

What is your motto?

Know when you are happy. Know yourself. Know your enemy. Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

The exceptional beauty among the beasts

The stereotypical image of the journalist—at least the male Indian one—is of a paunchy beast bred on cheap liquor, with dark lines under the eyes, stained teeth, nasal hairs (!), who may or not have a scraggy beard, with no dress sense or social graces. (Yes, there are exceptions but they quickly shift to television, PR or corporate communications, which sometimes can be the same thing.)

How lovely, therefore, to read Rachel Smith, a 21-year-old journalist with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from Belmont University, has been crowned Miss USA 2007. Rachel who works in Oprah Winfrey‘s company, Harpo Productions, was Miss Teen USA in 2002.

‘The future of newspapers isn’t in print’

Robert Scoble has seen the future and he says it isn’t in print. His son, he says, will neither subscribe to, nor read, a newspaper.

“The industry has NOT invested in its future. It is reaping the rewards of that. How many future journalists are being trained for the online world? I can tell you how many: zero.”

Maybe, but is this necessarily true in the Indian context?

Read the full article here: Newspapers are dead…