As digital technology continues to evolve and affect us a new media is coming forward. Interactive, tentative and proud to be different. New media is so young and new but it could offer so much. An early commentator on this is Jon Katz. His Media Rant columns for HotWired's The Netizen have been extremely influential on new media's fledgling leaders and innovators. He's been practicing what he preaches, taking part in online discussions and encouraging server-fulls of e-mail by the hour.

Almost ironically his career has been spent mostly in the 'old media', newspapers and TV. He was the executive producer of the CBS Morning News,and before that, a reporter and editor at the Washington Post, Dallas Times-Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe. He's written five novels and a non-fiction book, Virtous Reality, just out from Random House.

I managed to squeeze some time out of his busy schedule for an e-mail interview over the last week. I kicked off by asking how his move to online journalism had changed the way he wrote.

"Online journalism has transformed my writing. I get positive and negative feedback, learn constantly. My columns are no longer fixed and static ideas, but are living organisms that sail around the world. Every time I turn on the computer, I learn what I should have read, written and talked about thanks to the generosity of so many people who critique, praise and enlighten men. This is the freest medium ever, and it's infectious. Interactivity helps a writer learn and grow."

His concise words sum up what is so exciting about this new medium. The ability for authors to have their ideas questioned, picked at and generally evolved and improved as soon as they have been written is amazing. The journalist no longer carves his words into stone, but puts forward ideas to be chewed on by the public, and the journalist soon finds out how it tasted! This is interactivity and Jon agrees it has a big impact:

"Interactivity forces journalists to know their audience,and to be accountable. It makes journalists smarter and gives them access to more information. It gives individuals more power in dealing with media."

We continue in Part 2

 

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