Fresh Blood, Without Which There Is No Forgiveness of Cultural Sins

I was struck by an article in  the Federal Trade Commission's Staff Discussion Draft from its workshops on the topic "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?"

While The Washington Times lamented a "Drudge tax" on news aggregators (which would help funnel revenue back into generating news organizations), I was more interested in the idea (on page 17 of the Staff Discussion Draft and attributed to McChesney and Nicholls) of an arm of Americorps for journalists.

What's worth watching is that the proposal participates in the growing confidence in non-professionalism, for which there might well be some warrant.

Teach For America and the volunteer / amateur class in any profession can often provide a much needed antidote to moribund practices.  As an experienced teacher, I'd be the first to admit that fresh young teachers often lack a certain weary and subtle cynicism. 

They also know a lot less about their craft. 

And in Obama's America sometimes the real value of that idealism trumps the craft.

Journalism in 2010 seems deceptively simple: have integrity and good wireless, and a few insights, and knock yourself out.

But journalism, like teaching, is a rougher game than it appears on the surface, so much so that only a small percentage of cubs stick with it. 

It's worth interrogating (and measuring) how well the fresh blood actually atones for the sins of moribund professions in which experience does tend to become a liability, and how it is a myth that there's a corruption that comes with time at one's post, corruption that only fresh blood can atone for.