"I'm not changing, you change"
Story stolen from U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings; Max Lucado, "In the Eye of the Storm," 1991.
"Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow."
"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.
The lookout replied, "Steady, Captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.
The captain then called to the signalman, "Signal that ship: 'We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.'"
Back came the signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees."
The captain said, "Send: 'I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees.'"
"I'm a seaman second-class," came the reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees."
By that time the captain was furious. He spat out, "Send: 'I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.'"
Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."
We changed course."
Call me crazy, but I like change. It's a great antidote for boredom. And by now most journalists get it -- they have to embrace change if they hope to be a journalist five years from now.
The danger is that change often comes in a form of transitioning old ideas to a new medium. "Be sure we post that script and video package on the web after it airs." or "Let's build an online archive of all my previous stories."
These are examples of moving content from the legacy platform to a new one with little thought of how the audience, users' needs and means of consumption change. It's basically old news on demand -- yippee.
In the history of journalism, major developments in media channels have been accompanied by changes in journalism itself.
Take the American Civil War, correspondents used telegraphs to transmit their stories back to their newspapers to speed the delivery of their news. But it also spawned a more concise and tighter style of writing. Certainly details and descriptions were omitted for the sake of speed, but readers saw the value of a more current story. The journalism was not lessened, it evolved to take advantage of a new tool to deliver a product of greater value to the reader.
"In the past print, TV and radio have all figured out how to adapt and reposition themselves when new channels have emerged. Digital neither compromises nor changes the standards for journalism."
-- Jim Brady, Executive Editor of Washingtonpost.com
So it's not just changing, it's adapting.
