Did the title of this chapter scare you? It shouldn’t—but I’m going to ask you to stretch your mind just a bit in the pages ahead.
In this chapter I want to discuss, celebrate and speculate about how journalism is moving into the new era. We are racing ahead because so many people are trying new ideas and creating startup enterprises around them.
Maybe you’ll be one of them, at whatever level you may choose to venture into the arena—a blog on a topic where you can be the among the best guides, a community mail list, a video service, or anything that you are passionate about. You may want to make some money at it, or you may be motivated solely to help your community. Remember, the barrier to entry is close to zero, and you don’t need anyone’s permission.
Even if you aren’t planning to do any of those things, you’ll find what follows useful for this reason: Entrepreneurship is journalism’s future—the future of pretty much all enterprises, for that matter—so we all need to appreciate how it works, and how it is working.
As you read this, please remember to keep the core mediactive principles in mind. If we are not honorable in our practices, all of our innovation will fall short.