Journalism with a scientific twist

Dan Gillmor, director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship, put a whole new spin on my thinking about media outlets when he presented them on this slide as an ecosystem. The many outlets/platforms mimic the biological world of natural selection. The strongest survive. MySpace has died. Facebook is losing steam with some audiences. And Twitter is becoming dominant. Until, of course, something else catches peoples' attention.

Gillmor's other scientific takeaway was his friend's saying, "Interesting if true." A poster of this phrase will definitely be an addition to my classroom. So often students use the media outlets on the right side of the slide, which, in my opinion don't always have the most reliable information. As Gillmor said with using Wikipedia as a source, "It's the best place to start and the worst place to stop." Really, it's just a lesson in using multiple sources for stories to ensure accuracy.  Reminding my students of this next year will be an essential piece to starting the year.

Julie Fales
SM South
Overland Park, Kan.