Stunning Media Changes In 2006 Have College Journalism Educators’ Heads Spinning
(CBS/AP)
“Journalism is the art of collecting varying kinds of information (commonly called ‘news’), which a few people possess, and of transmitting it to a much larger number of people who are supposed to desire to share it.” -- Henry R. Luce, 1967.
“The medium is the message.” -– Marshall McLuhan, 1964.
“Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” -– A.J. Liebling, year unknown.
I told my “How the News Media Shape History” students at American University this semester that someday we would look back on 2006 as a landmark in the evolution of journalism. I didn’t base this on one major announcement or development but on a collection of events in media at the national level. The events signaled to me that leaders at the top levels of the news industry had faced their prospects in the roiling media environment and blinked.
