About the Importance of Ideas…
“Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.”
Those are the words of pioneering American newsman Edward R. Murrow. I love the quote, and his many others like it. It may sound a particularly high-minded agenda for what will inevitably be another inconsequential blog-of-consciousness. But I reckon it’s a pretty good place to start.
When I had the idea of starting a body of cyber-work – a revelation of not significant originality, to be sure – I wanted to build it around the idea of engagement with the world around us. I pride myself on being engaged; as head-over-heels attracted as I am to others who are similarly connected.
This will be a blog of ideas, big and small. They won’t all be particularly profound, though with any luck some will. A lot of it won’t be in any way serious, though much of it will be. There won’t be any one theme in content (media will be a particular focus), though a fairly loose narrative will emerge to keep like-minded folk engaged. Nor will the ideas come from any platform of specialist knowledge or expertise; like most journalists I rightly claim to be ignorant in almost everything.
They will be the thoughts of a media junkie. I’m fascinated by the operations and politics of media, the new technology in delivery and fragmenting of audiences, the role of news media and professional journalists now and into the future, in how public policy and the game of politics is shaped by the media, and yes in the celebrity of media and our shared pop cultural pursuits (there are plenty of those, and reviews will be forthcoming). I have very romantic notions of the role of traditional media and whatever ‘serious journalism’ now means, and fairly idealistic ideas of how a world which puts its people and environment first should work. That may be the naivety of youth, it may make me some sort of bleeding-heart liberal, in which so it is unapologetic.
In some ways I feel like I’ve only begun to discover this brave new interactive world. For every demented Britney Spears sympathiser on You Tube is a piece of work that truly promotes ideas and extends the debate. I hope to be an ever-so-tiny part of that.As Murrow said to open his 1958 speech attacking the dumbing-down of news media (as brilliantly dramatised in George Clooney’s Goodnight and Good Luck):
“This just might do nobody any good.”
Certainly true of this little experiment. But for a simply curious and engaged member of the world wide web, it may be cathartic even if nobody is reading.
More ideas:
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