How To Save Journalism From Itself

Editor of Slate Magazine and author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, David Plotz began his speech reminding us that journalism and the internet still have a very young relationship. He described how, in 1996, Slate was published for the first time online, and updated only once a week. As the need for speedy news progressed, their writers gradually increased the frequency of posts to once a day, and then to three times a day, until the present where it is normal to find 20+ posts per day. He also made it known that no matter how prestigious or popular a writer may be, a story written 24 hours after an event is ancient in internet time, and therefore useless in the news room. However, he stresses that his magazine is more dedicated to the content rather than speed, and appreciates readers that are loyal to that aspect. "Slate technically has 7 million readers, 500,000 of which we consider to be dedicated readers." He says.

I agreed with many of David Plotz's views on today's internet media and thought his speech was very well put together. I liked his sense of humor and the way he incorporated very recent events into the examples he used. A memorable quote was "The insta-story of the day is sometimes a silly balloon hoax and not something more prominent or important. You as a magazine can develop a reader following that is not looking for the Jon and Kate stories, but for quality journalism." One of the things I respected greatly about David Plotz was an opportunity he gives to each of Slate's writers to take 6 weeks off work to write one story - and write it well. It does not have to be about something of-the-moment, but rather something that maybe has been occurring for some time and has yet to be surfaced by the news. I thought that was a very cool way to intrigue readers about things they never put much thought in to. He finished with the following: "Convince your future employers not to drain you of adrenaline or dope you up on methamphetamine to produce of-the-moment stories; to be sucessful in journalism you need to have free time to screw around and stumble upon your own thing."