Mission Statement: "Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own."

Thanksgiving 2006


My goal is to become a paid member of the media at some point in the (very) near future.

My credentials? I hold an honours degree in history from Queen's University, and currently I attend Humber college's post-graduate journalism program here in Toronto, Ontario. And if you've read the previous post ("Adapt or perish, right?"), you'll know about my brief tenure with the Toronto Star.

I could go on about my zeal for worldly affairs, on how 'newsy' I am, or how I possess a "piercing sense of criticism that cuts to the bone of anything its runs over," but I will spare you the hyperbole.

Yeah, I firmly believe I have the tools to work in the fourth estate, but so do a lot of other people. Any good liberal humanities education inherently instills this, no?

So, what to do to get some attention, to separate oneself from thy competitors?

Answer: Start a blog.

Well, it may not be revolutionary, or even ahead of the pack (say, somewhere in the middle) but I look forward to publishing things on this site, and if it captivates - okay, merely interests - a potential employer for long enough to garner an interview or a chance at one, it's done its job.

Talk to you soon,
JS

"I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am a prod." - Winston S. Churchill

On Why: Adapt or perish, right?

What's up everyone… This bit here inaugurates the birth of my online blogging life. The genesis for this endeavor came from an academic assignment on writing a how-to piece on something of interest, and I instinctively orbited toward creating a web log as my subject.

Why?

Ever since the brief eight-month stint I was privileged enough to have worked at the Toronto Star last year (2005), I've been following the so-called decline and fall of the traditional newspaper. The passing conversations with my editor over the Star's strategic push toward broadening its media formats beyond the traditional daily, struck me as an imperative for all newspapers the developed-world over. The ubiquity of the internet and proliferation of niche news sources (the so-called Long Tail theory), I would begin to learn, were shattering already-declining subscriptions across North America and Europe, not to mention drawing off significant advertising revenue.

It was a two-front assault and print news organizations in 2005 were grappling to reinvigorate their marketshare.

We're rapidly approaching 2007 and guess what? They still are.

Last month's leader in Britain's The Economist magazine, "Who Killed the Newspaper," is further proof that the threat to old media, and its ancillary stakeholders (i.e. me) is real.

As I've learned to live with the knowledge that I'm entering an industry very much in flux, where jobs are changing dramatically or are being eviscerated outright, I've realized I need to react, and converge with the behaviour of the organizations I'll be relying on for my livelihood.

Adapt or perish, right?

To start, a rudimentary, service-hosted blog will hopefully suffice. My focus is stated in the mission statement at the top of the screen under the flag (read: broad). Feel free to post and comment anything you deem relevant, any and all contribution is welcome.

JS

“Just as everybody has an e-mail account today, everybody will have a blog in five years. Journalism won’t be a sermon any more, it will be a conversation.”- Sabeer Bhatia, creator, Hotmail.com