3 ms·
> "Everyone should learn to be a citizen journalist", or "Everyone should learn to be a copy editor". In theory, everyone already is a citizen journalist, and
by nostrademons 5y ago
> "Everyone should learn to be a citizen journalist", or "Everyone should learn to be a copy editor".
In theory, everyone already is a citizen journalist, and everyone should've learned to be a copy editor in the public school system. Much of the impetus for the "everyone should learn to code" effort is by analogy with English class, which is required every year in the public school system, but programming class is usually an exotic elective reserved for upper-middle-class districts. Illiteracy is not socially acceptable in America, but lots of people will say "Oh, I'm just not a math person", and programming is considered a profession rather than a requisite skill.
The woes of professional journalists are somewhat related to this. We're surrounded by a glut of potential writers. Because of that, we need heuristics for who we should actually pay attention to. One easy heuristic for that is pedigree: who do you know, what family were you born into, which college did you go to?