David Carr in today’s NYT describes the creative destruction and potential rebirth of the media industry, capturing a sense of optimism that has been long missing from the media in general. I love it. It is time for the media – mainstream, old school, new, social, etc. to get off its knees and remember what it can be, and the role it can play in the world. And if the people who are in charge don’t have that sense of wonder and optimism and unbounded belief in the power of communications to change and shape the world, then it is time for them to go. Others will take their place, and likely do a different and perhaps better job. Destruction nearly always makes way for rebirth. And as Carr says:
Somewhere down in the Flatiron, out in Brooklyn, over in Queens or up in Harlem, cabals of bright young things are watching all the disruption with more than an academic interest. Their tiny netbooks and iPhones, which serve as portals to the cloud, contain more informational firepower than entire newsrooms possessed just two decades ago. And they are ginning content from their audiences in the form of social media or finding ways of making ambient information more useful. They are jaded in the way youth requires, but have the confidence that is a gift of their age as well.
For them, New York is not an island sinking, but one that is rising on a fresh, ferocious wave.
That’s the spirit.