[Jeff Higgins]

O.k., I'm an old fart, and I'm getting ready to prove it.

I remember when the same thing happened in the engineering disciplines - CAD, or "computer aided design". The young-un's that could drive the various CAD packages were somehow seen (by management) as brighter than the old farts that couldn't. The "gee-whiz" factor was quite high when we first saw this stuff. It was easy for the kids to impress with their knowledge of these wonderful new tools. Impress non-engineers, that is. The rest of us could see right through the smoke and mirrors (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...). These hot shots were decidedly lacking in knowledge in their primary field, but effectively covered that up with their knowledge of the tools.

I wonder if the same thing has happened in the media. Many of us have noticed a distinctly lowering standard of journalism, of substance, of relevance in media. And a short attention span machine gun style delivery that has us old farts stuck on something two or three soundbytes back, as they rattle their way through them. I wonder how many really good journalists have lost out to the shallow glitz of modern electronic media and the vapid kids that can drive it.