Monday, May 11, 2009

Past/Future


I've been poring through my old notebooks for caption information on some stories I'm finishing off. I have a love/hate relationship with this story about the volunteers at a Methodist campground. These are lovely men giving their time to repair cabins, but it was sometimes a struggle to tell a compelling visual story during the winter, when most of the activity was indoor construction. Today, out of the blue, I came upon a page in my reporter's notebook with a quotation from Bill, the caretaker of the property who shepherds these men through their various tasks. Being the man in charge for the 80-acre campground is a spiritual calling for him. He says:
"If it is what you're meant to to, it's like Noah building the arc.
It's too big.
But because it is what you're meant to do, it's not too big."
I've been involved in some heated late-night conversations about the future of journalism with my friends Mara and Greg , and we haven't solved anything yet, except that there must be some greater exchange between programmers and journalists to create something completely new. What does that look like? Nobody knows. It's going to be a wild, sad, exciting, rich adventure, even if it seems impossibly big.

1 comment:

katie said...

ah... optimism, i miss you.