These notes are on the matter of Wikipedia. I’m only asking, but isn’t it time the press no longer kowtowed to Jimmy Wales and his cult-like enterprise, Wikipedia. Wales and his creation receive the deference of a saint or a newly crowned king. His treatment in the press is as if he were the founder of a “good” cult, a useful cult, and, fortunately, not one that would inflict mass suicide on its members. Or would it?
In my sporadic and thankfully infrequent use of the site, I find the style turgid, the system difficult to navigate and mostly the words an aggregation of information rather than anything new or exciting. Those elements only serve to further convince me that there are many other ways of finding information. Call me old-fashioned, but I would rather go to the source myself than put my trust in people whose bona fides are questionable at best, and often intellectually weak. I find it difficult to trust a 24 year old whose only strength may be in finding a missing comma and whose only ability is to maneuver his or her way onto the Wikipedia site as well as the Web. Essentially, I have a hard time trusting anyone without proper academic or life credentials.
Recently I turned to Wikipedia to see what it said about Post Modernism, a term now loosely applied to anything anyone thinks is new, and thus beyond the limits of this time or moment we are now living in. In simple terms, post modernism is that which is against modernism, or beyond modernism – whatever that is. My reading of the term says that how we live, think and act today is dreary, lacking in depth, without a future. Is the future now? Is the future coming at the speed of light as I type on my computer keyboard? Is the future in the immediate past as the words spill onto the page? I confess that I do not know. Nor do I think the Wikipedia entry helps clarify the meaning of post modernism. It is a mistake to think we can see into the future when we have enough to do battening down the hatches here in the present – which, incidentally just passed as you read the sentence.
I find the pages on Wikipedia a mess. Though the site liberally quotes seemingly every philosopher even remotely connected to the idea of post modernism and despite all the academic-looking citations, the definitions are still vague, as if the writers are afraid to commit. Surprisingly, the site with its many references, reads as if a copycat version of a real encyclopedia, actually looking and feeling encyclopedic, and the very thing Wikipedia stands against. The writing lacks vigor and is not much help in understanding the term nor how it affects and impacts thought today, especially when used in connection with new media. I can only imagine its pages are purposefully dense. The denser they are, the more difficult it is to critique the mess they are.
After reading page after page, I came away thinking the writing weak, the definitions unclear, and with many questions that still needed answers. I felt that all the hands involved with the section were unsteady. I am betting they were many, but the powers that run Wikipedia will never let us know how many people it took to create a part. Needless to say, I went elsewhere to continue my research and I am glad I did. I almost found myself seeking my answer in a book of mythological terms, feeling that at least in that kind of work I would discover something with proper age on it that would make sense.
Every entry in Wikipedia reads the same, looks the same, and feels the same. Laying out facts and then piling them one atop the other does not make an encyclopedia. I am not an apologist for the Encyclopedia Britannica or any other similar work. These books also lack style. Style should count for something. Wikipedia pieces uniformly lack style. They are high on what passes for substance – the piling on of purported facts – that only makes for joyless reading. It should not be too much to ask for an entertaining read now and then even when seeking information about something such as the string theory in physics.
Ease of reading, comfort of reading, and the joy of reading should all play a part as you seek information. But maybe this is not what Jimmy Wales and his ilk want. Lacking style means a sameness, something akin to the Cold War days in East Germany when everything behind The Wall was gray, where individuality had no place in life and thought, in heart and mind. With the continuing assault on intellectualism by Wikipedia, there can be only one conclusion: academic credentials count for little or nothing in this brave new world of the anonymous contributor to knowledge.
USC Launches Fellowship and Degree Program for Top Journalists Determined to
Lead Profession
In response to a rapidly evolving industry, USC Annenberg`s School of
Journalism will offer a unique 9-month M.A. degree In response to a rapidly
evolving industry, USC Annenberg`s School of Journalism will offer a unique 9-month M.A. degree
in specialized journalism beginning in August 2008. Top students will be
nominated for the university`s prestigious new USC Annenberg Graduate
Fellowships. These fellowships provide full tuition and stipends to 100
world-class scholars and practitioners in the fields of communications and
digital media each year.
The new M.A. program will provide highly individualized courses of study in
fields as diverse as science, religion, immigration and education. In
addition to journalism classes taught at USC Annenberg, students will take
courses with faculty from USC`s other highly regarded academic units,
including the Rossier School of Education, School of Policy, Planning and
Development, and College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“Now more than ever, quality journalism requires subject-matter expertise,
advanced reporting skills and knowledge of how new communication
technologies are changing the ways that people learn, think and behave,”
says Roberto Suro, the veteran journalist and researcher who directs the
Specialized Journalism M.A. degree program. “This program offers students a
chance to move forward on all three fronts by putting the resources of a
great university at their disposal.”
Outstanding applicants to the M.A. in Specialized Journalism will be
nominated by the Annenberg School to receive significant financial
assistance and be awarded particular distinction as USC Annenberg Fellows by
the USC Annenberg Graduate Fellowship Program.
“The USC Annenberg Fellows will conduct communications and digital media
research, advance bold new ideas in the communication arena and produce
innovative creative works,” said USC vice provost Jean Morrison. “They will
be drawn from a variety of academic programs in the Annenberg School for
Communication, the School of Cinematic Arts and the Viterbi School of
Engineering. The USC Annenberg Fellows will constitute an internationally
recognized and highly regarded group of communications research scholars and
creative practitioners. We are delighted to launch this program and to
accelerate the university`s leadership role in cross-disciplinary
communications-related graduate research and education.”
A report sponsored by the Knight Foundation revealed that the lack of
training opportunities is a top professional concern of U.S. journalists,
outranking even pay and benefits. In addition to basic skills, journalists
and their managers desire training and education in specific topic areas to
enhance their coverage of beats such as health and business.
“Leaders of American journalism believe that there is a strong and
increasing need for expertise in substantive areas covered by the U.S. news
media and of great importance to the society that they serve expertise
that is lacking in the newsrooms of most newspapers, magazines, broadcast
outlets and news Web sites,” says Michael Parks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
former editor of the Los Angeles Times who directs USC Annenberg`s School of
Journalism.
In addition to Professors Suro and Parks, other faculty in the program
include award-winning science author and reporter K.C. Cole; author,
journalist and holder of the Knight Chair in Media and Religion Diane
Winston; Larry Pryor, a former environmental affairs reporter and editor
with the Los Angeles Times, Louisville Courier-Journal and former editor of
USC Annenberg`s Online Journalism Review; and Bill Celis, the award-winning
author and former New York Times education correspondent.
The program is designed for professionals with demonstrated abilities in
journalism as well as recent undergraduate journalism students with strong
academic records and internship experience. Individuals working in all forms
of media and journalistic platforms are invited to apply. Students will be
encouraged to produce journalism that can be published, broadcast or
otherwise disseminated as part of their work in the program.
Applications will be accepted from February 1 to April 2, 2008, and
candidates will be notified of an admission decision within 4 to 6 weeks of
submitting a completed application. For details about the application
process, visit http://annenberg.usc.edu/prospectivestudents.
“Almost more than any other profession, journalism depends on intellectually
versatile practitioners people skilled in the immediate tasks of the
craft, to be sure, but also fluent in the purposes and function of civil
society. Such nimbleness of mind and technique can only be achieved with
quality journalism as its result through a process of continuous
learning,” said Carroll D. Stevens, former director of the Knight Foundation
Fellowships for Journalists in Law at Yale Law School.
Located in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC
Annenberg School for Communication is among the nation`s leading
institutions devoted to the study of journalism and communication, and their
impact on politics, culture and society. With an enrollment of more than
1,900 graduate and undergraduate students, USC Annenberg offers degree
programs in journalism, communication, public diplomacy and public
relations. For more information, visit annenberg.usc.edu.
