de.tech.ting

Sign me up for Professor Goldman’s class.  He gets that you can’t take full advantage of the future without understanding the past. There are certain fundamentals of journalism and storytelling that are pervasive and enduring, and you can’t cover them all in 140 characters.  Some you learn in class, some on the street, and some over a beer in a bar. And those are often the ones you remember most vividly.

“Fuck new media,” the coordinator of the RW1 program, Ari Goldman, said to his RW1 students on their first day of class, according to one student. Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor, described new-media training as “playing with toys,” according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”

Goldman’s official take on the situation is considerably more measured, and he insists he is not against new media. “They need to know the ethics and history and practice of journalism before they become consumed with the mold they put it in, because the mold will change — the basics won’t,” he says, explaining his outburst.

Columbia J-School’s Existential Crisis — Daily Intel — New York News Blog — New York Magazine

Footnote: I’m setting aside my personal “new media” pet peeve.  Really, it’s not so new anymore…