MEET the DePRESSed

Earlier I profiled Eileen Smith, blogger turned online editor of Texas Monthly. I included a few recent gems from her blog, but now let's examine an excerpt of a column written for her real job, rather than for her own amusement. This full article about new media, called "MEET the DePRESSed", appears online at TexasMonthly.com.

Even those who kept their jobs, like Karen Brooks, found their beats changing a bit. A Capitol bureau reporter, Brooks now covers online politics and new media as well. She has been a newspaper reporter for thirteen years, and has worked at the Morning News for three-and-a-half years.

When asked whether she thinks print is on its way out, Brooks responded, “Unfortunately, I do—eventually, anyway. I don’t like it, and I don’t like to admit it.

“I’ve been in the newspaper business for so long,” she continued. “I was refusing to admit it was changing. But, I don’t feel like [the Internet] is killing journalism.”

Brooks contributes to the Morning News’s political blog, “Trail Blazers,” where she’s free to be sarcastic and edgy, which is to say, free to be a blogger.

Initially, Smith is referencing the recent "option" given to Dallas Morning News reporters to receive pay to quit working. Seasoned journalist Karen Brooks survived the exodus, but is now also a blogger on the newspaper's website. As a part of the new media frontier while still clinging to the old guard, Brooks can finally concede to the ideas of the digital revolution as she realizes that dead-tree media is past its prime.

Smith uses the direct quotes from Brooks to really drive home her point about new media: even veteran reporters are waving the white flag at the blogosphere.

But let’s be honest. It doesn’t really matter what Karen Brooks thinks. Or what I think. Or what anyone over thirty thinks. Like many of my colleagues, I’m a washed-up has-been. As so-called “digital immigrants” (those who grew up in a world where you filled out your college applications on a typewriter), there’s only so much we can do to help shape the future of media.

“Digital natives,” on the other hand, were born around 1985, when personal computers were already ten years old. They have never known a world without the Internet (lucky bastards). They are adept multimedia producers and certified gadgetophiles who create content as much as they consume it, if not more. Avid newspaper readers, they are not. In fact, younger readers view the corporate-owned mainstream media with disgust, if not outright contempt.

Smith brilliantly uses unique terminology to help further demonstrate the divide: "digital immigrants" and "digital natives." The immigrants, she humorously illustrates, filled out their college applications on a typewriter, while the "gadgetophile" natives never knew a world without the Internet.

But I can’t speak for them, mostly because I don’t understand their language, which is transferred through text messages and seems to consist entirely of acronyms. As for me, I like the autonomy and accessibility of online news. I like that I can get information from an array of different sources. I like watching video and downloading podcasts and perusing the self-absorbed rantings on blogs (mine included). I like posting comments and interacting with shadowy, anonymous figures. And I especially like the fact that you can do all this at your job and still look like you’re working.

Try doing that with a newspaper.

Poking fun at text messaging and the "language" it employs, Smith further defines the differences in the new media culture and the old. She then points out the obvious advantages to this tidal wave of the information age. Smith uses online media for all its worth, and best of all, since she's sitting in front of a computer screen it makes her look like she's doing something important. Like working.