Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We have moved from “everyone is a censor” to “everyone is a reporter.” All these reporters work for me, and the rest of us, for free.

In our not-too-distance past, we entered the age of “everyone is a censor.” Everyone had a camera in their pocket. Everyone had a thermometer in their pocket. Everyone had…and so on. We were all collecting information and eventually putting it in a place where we could access it later.

We are now in the time where everyone is a reporter. We easily report the information we collect and we report it right now

I don’t need a weatherman. Someone on Twitter just posted that the wind shifted from the North and the temperature is dropping. I don’t need SportsCenter or whatever. Someone just posted the final score of the game (including the local high school game that the national folks don’t report). And someone posted the closing numbers on Wall Street, the new clothes at Kohl’s, the stores that closed at the mall, and everything else.

It goes on. Read the newspaper? Why?

And now we come to the hard stuff. Pay graduates of journalism school to, uh, er, what would they do? Expert opinions? How much of an expert do you have to be to tell me that it is raining?

But what about analysis and insight and those really difficult things that take time to consider and explain? I read those at no charge on the blogs of the experts.

Sorry. Everyone is a reporter. And they work for me for free.