Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) teaches journalism at NYU and directs the Studio 20 program there. He critiques the press and works to understand digital logic. He's an adviser to First Look Media.
"Think before you tweet" - George Monbiot
Wednesday, 21 May 2014
Saturday, 17 May 2014
Are law schools teaching their students the right skills?
Cindy Royal wrote an article on Medium, 'Are journalism schools teaching their students the right skills?' She asked:
How much of your curriculum is dedicated to these issues?
"1
Do you understand the history of computers, the Internet, and web and how they relate to the current state of platforms? (Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee; Hackers: The Heroes of the Technology Revolution by Steven Levy;The Internet: Behind the Web; Download: The True Story of the Internet
2
Do you understand new business models created by platforms? (The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More by Chris Anderson; Free: How Today’s Smartest Businesses Profit by Giving Something for Nothing by Chris Anderson; What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis; The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen; Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig)
3
Do you understand the role of the user in a platform environment? (Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Ageby Clay Shirky; Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins)
4
Do you understand network effects that drive platform dynamics? (The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society by Manuel Castells; The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Yochai Benkler)
5
Do you know what technology entrepreneurs think about the news business? (The Future of the News Business: A Monumental Twitter Stream All in One Place)
6
Are you familiar with each of these sites or mobile apps for distribution of news? (Reddit;Medium; Vox; FiveThirtyEight; BuzzFeed;Upworthy; Circa; PolicyMic; The Intercept)
7
Do you know why you should care about and use social media platforms? (Facebook Paper;Twitter; Google Now; Yahoo News Digest)
8
Do you understand the role of data in telling a story? (The Data Journalism Handbook;Anyone Can Do It: Data Journalism is the New Punk by Simon Rogers; “Analysing Data is the Future for Journalists, says Tim Berners-Lee”by Charles Arthur)
9
Do you know how to: Make a basic website from scratch using HTML/CSS? Register a domain and get web hosting? Customize a blog platform like WordPress? Do basic video and audio editing? (Find basic introductory handouts.) Or do you have any of the more advanced skills of: JavaScript? Data viz tools, like Google Fusion Tables, Chart.js, or D3.js? A web development language like PHP, Python, or Ruby? Git and GitHub? SQL or MySQL database commands? (Find more advancedhandouts.)
10
Do you pay attention to technology websites and publications? (Follow them on Twitter:Mashable; TechCrunch; Pando; Recode)
So it’s platform or perish. We’ll never be able to fully achieve a digital, technology-based curriculum until we have faculty who are committed to preparing students for the digital, technology-based world into which they are graduating. The sooner we all accept this, the better.
Because we work in tech."
Likewise, I ask: are law schools teaching their students the right skills?
Monday, 12 May 2014
Richard Susskind serves up tough love to Irish lawyers
Richard Susskind believes that lawyers and law firms need to ask themselves a basic question: what are lawyers for? he them said:
"Most lawyers, when they think about the future, tend to think, ‘what do we do today’ – one-to-one consultative advisory service, usually on an hourly billing basis – and ‘how can we make it a bit quicker, cheaper, better’. Not often enough are lawyers taking a step back and asking the question: what fundamental value is it that we bring to those we advise? Why is it that clients pay handsomely for our service?"
Susskind said that of the Legal Services Act 2007 which introduced alternative business structures and meant non-lawyers could share profits with lawyers in legal businesses:
"What it actually means in practice is that we have an entrepreneurial spirit in the legal world that we have never had before. You’ve got banks, building societies and insurance companies coming into the legal marketplace alongside publishers and accountants. You have got external funding, which is bringing new ideas, new ways of delivering services– far cheaper for citizens."
In Ireland alternative business structures were the most contentious part of the proposed Legal Services Regulation Bill. The Bar Council, which represents barristers, strenuously opposed the idea, arguing it would hinder access to justice and have no cost benefit to clients.Richard Susskind criticised the American Bar Association for arguing that such liberalisation would prejudice access to justice. Saying:
"In fact it’s exactly the reverse. In almost all jurisdictions that are liberalising, it’s enabling access."
Suds kind concluded by saying:
"We have to open our minds to working in entirely new ways."
In Irish Times in full here: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/dragging-the-legal-sector-into-the-21st-century-1.1789869?page=2
David Leonhardt of the recently created UpShot on the New York Times said on the Charlie Rose Show:
"If you have been running a business for 50 years, 100 years, 150 years, and you’ve been successful and then someone says, let’s do things differently and it’s going to cannibalise our business, of course the initial instinct is no."
Richard Susskind appeared at the 2013 Northern Ireland bar council conference. I covered the event here:
And here:
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