Bay Area News Project Editor's Meet And Greet: The New Breadline

It seemed like 30 percent of the attendees were old, veteran journalists, the rest middle age and a few youngies. I think it might be OK to hire one oldie, but geez, most of the older folks need to cycle out of journalism, if not the workforce. I can't see Weber putting old skool reporters on a new media project. Weber, however, is a pretty good mix of old/new skool and for/non-profit. I went in skeptical, but I was actually enthralled with his presentation, that he does have a reasonable vision for this project, or perhaps for the future of journalism in general. A lot of the old die-hards I spoke to didn't share my optimism. They're concerned about Hellman's funding, are not very adaptable, want to continue with old mainstream media ideas, etc. A lot of so-called veteran journalists only recently found out about Twitter/Facebook, like these are new technologies, but Weber, well, he been there, done that, and I don't think he'll play that angle. Social networks are nothing new, in fact, blogging started 10+ years ago and socnet in 2002. Socnet is already out of vogue, abandoned by young people and overtaken my middleagers, and proven to be a deceptive form of research and distribution.

Well, it's up to Weber/Hellman what to do. They'll get hundreds, if not thousands of resumes and it was almost disgusting to see so many wannebees licking Weber's feet at the gathering. People, you cannot seriously think you'll get hired. Go buy a lotto tick and turn on to some Grateful Dead!