Ouch

Bob Cauthorn is a 20-year journalist who created the award-winning sfgate Web site for the San Francisco Chonicle. He's now out of newspapers and involved online. In this talk that he gave at the UC Berkeley multimedia workshop in May 2005, he critiques print newspapers. His talk is called The Changing Rules of Journalism: the role of editors and reporters in the future. Get ready for some harsh criticism of the newsroom, editors and reporters. An example: he'd ban journalism competitions for five or 10 years so journalists will stop writing for each other (and judges) and return to writing for their readers. I didn't agree with it all, and found his tone wearing. But it's clear he's passionate about journalism and wants it to be better -- whether it's online or in print. Got a fix on "the random access reader?" Think newspapers will keep publishing seven days a week? Give Bob a listen.