Saturday, January 31, 2009

Keeping Up is Overwhelming


In class this week my students asked me how I keep up with everything, the truth is that I don't. I read as much as I can when I can. Most of my news now comes from the breaking news alerts that I get on Twitteriffic on my iPhone. A lot of times I don't even have a chance to visit the news websites but I'm informed at least minimally.

I do try to visit several blogs and websites on a regular basis including Rick's RSS, the BuzzMachine and TVSpy.com. By the way, if you can sign up for Professor Rick Hancock's job board. It will give you an idea of what jobs, resources and career networks are out there to help you. I am going to require my students to sign up so they can see the reality of the journalism job market.

I just ordered five books on Amazon.com. What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis, Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, the Ominivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and The Man Who Owns the News: The Secret World of Rupert Murdoch. When I'll have time to read them is a totally different question but in order to teach I have to be up to speed.

I know we are in a scan society NOT a print society. Meaning as Jeremy Rifkin wrote in his book The Age of Access and noted in a previous blog post, time and attention are commodities. Therefore, I will end this post now.

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