Peter Rost says that he is starting a career in journalism, and has been hired by a large circulation magazine to write for them online. (Swedophiles will delight in some interviews that he did with Swedish media on his site, as well as some ABBA videos, a sunny counterbalance to yesterday's news of the loss of film director Ingmar Bergman).
Journalism schools and media groups like ABM or SPJ could hire Rost to teach students the finer points of Web 2.0 media and blogging; they're not the same, as new blogger Pharma Fraud pointed out recently. Some bloggers (me included) tend to focus on providing readers with news, but there's more (or should be more) to the mix, and, since last Spring, Peter Rost not only scoops major stories but often hits just the right balance between news, promotion, entertainment, and commentary.
Some recent articles discuss the challenges involved in moving to Web 2.0. Merrill Goozner, noted healthcare journalist wrote a very nice piece about the impact that digital journalism is having on print on his blog, Gooz News. As he wrote, "for the Tribune, the decline in ALL revenue was greater than ALL internet revenue combined. In other words, for every $8 decline in print revenue, the company picked up $1 in internet revenue."
Writing movingly on this subject, and from a very different perspective, is journalist and patient Philip Dawdy in his blog, Furious Seasons, in June (can't link to individual items....check out his posts on Web 2.0 and on "content creators"dated June 19th).
For a truly dissenting note, check out this mini-smorgasbord of Andrew Keen's latest videos and articles. Keen, whose anti-Web 2.0 diatribe, Cult of the Amateur, came out this Summer and who spoke here in Chicago earlier this month, insists that Web 2.0 is an affront to the meritocracy that is the essence of any democratic society. "Most of us don't have anything to say which is sufficiently provocative to generate a monetary transaction," he reportedly said at the Chicago event.
No doubt the situation will change, but, clearly, these are "interesting times" for anyone working in mainstream or B2b/trade media.
-AMS
