From Dave Weinberger’s blog — he attended the New Media Academic Summit and caught a snippet of the end of a blogging and journalism panel with Jodi Kantor, Dan Gillmor and Steve Rubel.
I asked whether the rhetorical voice of blogging is changing the reportorial voice. Jodi replied that that voice has been getting more informal for years, and not just because of blogging. But, she said, when you can see how your readers are taking what you say, you try to write even more clearly and precisely.
“Another example of how blogging is improving journalism,” said Dan.
The same argument could be made inversely. The fact that the reportorial voice is becoming more casual, more approachable, may be what makes more people return to words in the first place. It’s a different time. I had a conversation with Mark Alexander who brought up an interesting point vis Marc Prensky. The gist of it is this: we have to be so careful to understand why we chose to teach what we teach. Just because the papers I grade today don’t conform to the rules of yesterday, does that make them any less appropriate? Content-rich? Accurate? We thought video games would destroy civilization. Now we’re using them as teaching tools.
I don’t want to agree. There’s something deep in me that pushes, rallies against this. But as educators, we have to own what’s ours, and fight the battles that really need fighting.
