Holovaty's Missouri J-school speech

Adrian Holovaty tells it like it is:

Graduates, the fire should be burning under each and every one of you. You should be yearning -- aching -- to bring this industry into a new age. Your generation -- our generation -- is going to be the one to do it.

You're going to be the people breaking the rules. You're going to be the people inventing new ones. You'll be the person who says, "Hey, let's try this new way of getting our journalism out to the public." You'll be the PR person who says, "Let's try this new way of public relations that takes advantage of the Internet." You'll be the photographer who says, "Wow, quite a few amateur photographers are posting their photos online. Let's try to incorporate that into our journalism somehow."

You'll be the person who asks, "Why are we doing things the way they are?", and when the top editor says, "Because that's the way they've always been done," you'll openly question that. "Because we've always done it that way" doesn't cut it. "Because we've always done it that way" is blatantly unacceptable, blatantly lazy, and you need to call that out.

The pressure's on. :)

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