ARTICLE: Adrian Holovaty’s commencement speech at Mizzou
Adrian Holovaty is an online journalists I - and many others in the industry - admire greatly. Even though he’s young - he got his BA from Univ. of Missouri in 2001 - he’s one of the most influential folks working in our business today, thanks to his work as head of editorial innovations at the WashingtonPost.com and his projects, such as ChicagoCrime.org and several others. He was invited to give the commencement address at his alma mater this month and the text of his speech is worth reading. It’s not about blogs per se, but there’s a lot about the changing media landscape.
And if you get frustrated at work, do projects in your spare time. Start your own thing. The Chicago crime site I told you about was just a side project for me; I did it because it was exciting to do something that hadn’t been done before. I know of two journalists in Chicago who both quit their jobs in professional media and have started doing independent journalism on the Web. And I know of more than a dozen journalists who keep blogs in which they write about the industry — what were good ideas, what were bad ideas, what the industry needs to do next.
