Tag Archives: media

The future of journalism

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The future of journalism, of course, is in the hands of the young journalists and journalism students who are about to enter the profession.

That’s why I’m happy (and honored) to be volunteering as one of the professional mentors working with a group of students on AAJALink, the student-run Web site covering the annual convention of the Asian American Journalists Association.

The confab is in Minneapolis, a city I’ve never traveled to. So far, I haven’t seen much of it except what I’m sure must be the world’s largest Target (a two-story department store a block away from the retailer’s corporate offices, which is also on the downtown Minneapolis Nicollette Mall). Continue reading →

Rockcrits, Schmockrits

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I’m always fascinated by the field of rock criticism. It’s hard to believe that a career that didn’t exist until the mid-1960s and didn’t become commonplace until the late 1970s and early ’80s — that’s when most paper in America finally relented and realized they better have a “staff pop music critic” onboard — is already entrenched in traditions and patterns. There’s even a Web site to rock critics’ serious navel gazing, RockCritics.com.

I used to be a rockcrit, and I loved my decade-plus covering music, especially because I did it for Westword when it was still a fledgling alternative paper, and I was in it for the passion. I had my heroes — brainy academic Greil Marcus, Rock & Rap Confidential founder Dave Marsh and the Village Voice’s self-proclaimed “Dean of American Rock Critics,” Robert Christgau. Continue reading →