Conservative Corner: A Stranger in a Strange Land

During the weekend of the March 3, 2013, the staff of the Commuter,(including yours truly), endured a long 12 hour journey by passenger van to and from the Golden State and the City by the Bay to attend the 29^th Annual Associated Collegiate National College Journalism Convention. The trip was defiantly memorable; however, not much unlike that annoying person who you just met and won’t leave you alone, it seems bits of the liberal media kept on poking out is ugly head for its understanding of what is news and journalism.

As a small town kind of guy, I found the City of San Francisco to be a world of wonder. Tall buildings that would keep doctors busy for weeks with neck problems and the sights, sounds, smells and attitudes of the big city was quite a sensory overload for some who are not used to it. The sessions at the convention for me were nearly as over whelming as the city itself.

The conference played host to over 60 sessions with more than 50 speakers and 30 plus panelists. It was a four day free-for-all for knowledge, advice and information on what the pros do in today’s journalism world with sessions on everything from the importance of the internet in today journalism world to how to train you sales staff and everything in between. Unfortunately, I did feel the lack of conservative journalism and a little more liberal journalism than I would have liked to see.

Walking into a session as an older college student was somewhat overwhelming.  In classes of my youth students would actually use pen and paper to take notes and sometimes use a tape recorder. I noticed that time is nearly gone. As I glanced around a room I witnessed journalists of tomorrow tap out notes and tweets on their laptops, tablets and phones. One person tweeted that the journalism classes of today are different than those of the past. Today, students who spend all their class time on phones are not considered rude. It is strange how times change.

I have come to the conclusion that gone is the old ways of doing things; including journalism and we must make the jump to modern communications to keep up with the rest of the world despite how it feels to the older crowd. With the majority of people at conference plugged in to some degree, I have found that me and people like me cannot be the proverbial old man sitting on the porch screaming at the local kids to get off his lawn. Either we all except the new ways of communication or get left behind and suffer the consequences. This is especially true with older people.  

The convention in San Francisco was a fun and exciting place and we all learned a lot, however I came to the realization that technology is the way of the future no matter what your field of interest is. So embrace it, even if you are older, and watch how far modern technology can take you.