Democratizing Information Through Technology

It was once said, freedom of the press is limited to those with presses. Not anymore.

This afternoon (while taking my shower) I was listening to an NPR program discussing fall foliage. Some of what I heard was unexpected. Is it possible some of what I’ve always taken as carved-in-stone truth isn’t quite? Maybe the time of leaf changing doesn’t happen like clockwork.

I do a daily science/technology segment. Is there a better story to cover?

My purpose in writing this isn’t to tell you about my story as much as the enabling technology I’ll be using.

I contacted the professor I’d heard via email. He responded a few minutes later. We made an appointment to meet on Skype.

I love Skype dearly, but it’s not always dependable or easy to operate. There was no audio coming to me from his Mac! We rescheduled for 5:30 this evening.

This time the Skype problems were on my end. They were quickly overcome.

As he spoke an editor here captured the audio and video on a server. Videotape is passe.

I don’t want to log and write my story tonight, so I’m currently spooling off the video (all 1.7 Gb of it) onto a USB stick I carry with my keys!

If you’re my daughter’s age this is all matter-of-fact. If you’re my age you understand that none of this was possible as recently as a few years ago.

Though we use these tools at the TV station they’re available to anyone. Email is ubiquitous. Skype is free. The USB stick cost less than $20.

Information technology is more powerful than ever before and at a price that’s democratized it! It was once said, freedom of the press is limited to those with presses. Not anymore.

3 thoughts on “Democratizing Information Through Technology”

    1. It is built into our mass storage system called TONS. It is proprietary software built in house at Tribune, our parent company.

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