“To lose a language is to lose a lot of cultural information. If we don’t preserve them, we’ll be left with much impoverished human heritage.”
—Institute for Language Information and Technology Director Anthony Aristar • Speaking in supposrt of Google’s latest project, the Endangered Languages Project. ELP went live this week; it has “text, audio and video — such as people speaking or singing in the endangered languages - and bibliographic resources” of languages like Navajo and Koro. There are thousands of languages in danger of going extinct; this project aims to help preserve as many of them as possible. source (via • follow)
June 2012
20 posts
“[We assume] that the worker who works longest is most committed as opposed to valuing time management and efficiency at getting things done over the length of time. And second, [we assume] that that time has to be spent at the office.”
—On today’s Fresh Air, Princeton professor Anne-Marie Slaughter details the balancing act that women face when holding high-powered positions and raising children at the same time. She also details what needs to change both in workplaces and in society to create equal opportunities for all working women. (via nprfreshair)
J-School Ate My Brain →
uvm.edu
After reading this New Republic article by Michael Lewis, I was struck by how much the journalism industry has changed since Lewis wrote in 1993.
In his article, Lewis accuses j-school (or at least the Columbia School of Journalism, where he gathered material for his story) of being a disseminator of jargon and false promises, a waste of money for aspiring reporters hoping to break into the industry. He quotes news editors who insist that j-school does not make a difference in hiring new talent, and in fact sometimes detracts from the applicants that list j-school programs on their resumes.
I can see how, in 1993, j-school perhaps wasn’t necessary for most aspiring journalists. Real experience counts for a lot, and if a writer could land an internship or job out of college, they could slowly begin to build their career. Plus, it’s tough to teach good writing (even at Columbia) if a student doesn’t have the knack for it. I get that. However, I also can’t help but wonder how much Lewis draws upon his own experience to inform his opinion of j-school. After all, he graduated from Princeton in 1982 with a degree in Art History and went on to become a journalist and a writer. No j-school degree helped him achieve his success.
But the industry has changed, and so has the economy. Now, having other skills besides reporting and writing makes journalists much more attractive in the job market. And for students like me, who were unable to major in Journalism during their undergraduate careers and did not gather a ton of clips, enrolling in a graduate j-school program seems like the perfect way to gather the additional skills and experience needed to find a job. At Syracuse, I will be learning some graphic design skills, which will enable me to understand typography and basic design principles of print layouts (and help me make a fancy resume). I’ll also take a formal class on ethics - rather than just winging it, which can lead to trouble - and I’ll learn how to use social media effectively as a tool to publicize my writing, crowdsource for research, and maximize the visibility of my employer or publication’s work on the Web. J-school is no longer just about learning some fancy jargon, obsessing over proper grammar and spelling, and writing weekly articles on topics that don’t matter. J-school - or, at least, Syracuse’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications - provides journalists with the experience and skills needed to keep them afloat in the tumultuous, mashup, print-digital-iPad industry that will continue to evolve and change after graduation next year. And when I leave Syracuse in July 2013, I’m excited to know that I’ll be prepared to meet the demands of this brave new world - and contribute my own unique perspective to it, using the knowledge of graphic design, social media, writing, and editing that I’ve gained during my time at j-school.
“I wasn’t planning on having you as my roommate,” Wil tells Olivia. “I actually thought that if Bowdoin College knew I had you, they wouldn’t let me come to college. So, I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.”
—A Single Dad And His Unlikely College Roommate from StoryCorps
Perfect story for Father’s Day.
“Everybody blames the Internet for the decline of newspapers, but the Web is only the most recent of electric interruptions to have disturbed their profitability, which began with radio in the late 1920s and was followed by broadcast television, car radios, transistor radios, FM radio, and cable television. Newspapers were in so much advertising trouble in September 1941 that Time magazine ran a piece about their “downward economic spiral.” Press scholar David R. Davies argues in his 2006 book The Postwar Decline of American Newspapers, 1945-1965 that daily newspapers were in serious trouble by the mid-1960s, because, among other things, they had failed to hook the baby boom generation. Los Angeles Times press reporter David Shaw sounded the alarm in a 1976 piece in his newspaper. It began: “Are you now holding an endangered species in your hands?” Update the figures and change a few dates and the names of the principals in Shaw’s piece and you could almost pass it off as a 2012 diagnosis of newspaper industry ills.”
—Jack Shafer, Reuters. The Great Newspaper Liquidation. (via futurejournalismproject)
“A good curator is thinking not just about acquisition and selection, but also contextualizing.”
—Joanne McNeil in What We Talk About When We Talk About “Curation” (via explore-blog)
