For those keeping score at home, the narrowed gap between product announcements and launches Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker assured us of was just over 3 months for the Veer and over 4.5 months for the HP TouchPad. And the Pre 3? It looks like that will be a gap not even Evel Knievel would have been able to jump.
I was recently asked by Jack Oughton to answer four questions for Catch 22, an endeavor that takes a unique approach to cultivating journalists. Here are the questions, followed by my responses:
1: What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to aspiring journalists?
Be bold. It doesn’t take much to write a report, but it often takes plenty to have a reader walk away with something he or she didn’t have before.
2: What was the most important thing you did for your career?
The most important thing I did for my career was align myself with the right people. Everything in life is a team sport, and if you don’t find the right team you’ll never be happy. I work with great people and even on terrible days, I’m better off than I would be had I decided to compromise and play for the wrong team.
3: Did you always want to work in the media?
Definitely not… I went to school for business. Then I took a wrong turn somewhere and worked as a marketing exec for about four years. Then I took another wrong turn and found myself working as a business development exec for another three years. It wasn’t until I grew thoroughly tired of constantly addressing the same challenges that I wandered into writing and editing professionally.
4: Lastly, what is good journalism to you?
To me, good journalism answers burning questions people didn’t even know they wanted answers to. Good journalism translates the emotions of a situation so accurately and profoundly that the reader has no choice but to feel them as though he or she was there first hand. Good journalism leaves the reader in a better place than he or she started, or in a worse place, but never in the same place.
Good journalism addresses both sides of a story thoroughly, but it also inherently expresses opinion. People have opinions and people want to read opinions. They want desperately to nod their heads in agreement, and even more desperately to shake their fists in outrage. Journalists are sometimes trained to be impartial messengers who merely regurgitate news. This has its place, but one would be hard pressed to find a respected journalist who didn’t get his or her hands dirty quite often. In fact, in the eyes of many, good journalism might not be journalism at all.
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It should be noted that while my work does often intersect with that of a journalist, and while my objectives do, at times, align with some of those mentioned above, I do not consider myself to be a journalist. More on that here.
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Greenspun’s review is just a draft right now, but ouch.