Information, Pace Thyself. OK?
Media outlets fall over themselves to report the news faster and first. I heard a lot about their strategies at the Society of Professional Journalists national conference last week.
The pace of information is relentless — we all know that. For me, the biggest question arising from that pace is this: Can I absorb it and, if I can, will I understand it?
Reporters, editors, owners and professors at the conference were rightly focused on the future of the profession. Discussion and debate about the future was lively, heated, nostalgic. Many creative ideas popped up. I even felt a palpable sense of hopefulness, even as the dozens of journalism students in attendance gathered business cards and compared credentials and job prospects. In fact, the students provided a surprising grasp of the profession and asked pointed questions of high ranking media executives. They also dinged folks like me — who are of a certain generation — as being incapable of connecting today’s emerging information technologies with the time-honored tradition of gathering and pitching news stories.
Hmmm. So I’m a Luddite after all? A 21-year-old thinks I, and others like me, are dinosauring our way through life and career? If my daughter has 6,000 songs on her iPod, and I only have 1,200, do I belong in a lower professional caste? (Even if my songs are better than hers?)
Here’s the thing. Information breaks the speed limit all the time. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s like fishing in a stocked pond; you’ve got lots of fish, but you can catch just one at a time. Be selective in how you absorb and understand information. Follow your interests, develop new ones, and use the flow of information as a benchmark — not as a wide net into which you gather everything.
I may be a recovering Luddite, but I am not ready to be an information schizophrenic.