Just occasionally you can look up from your desk, shrug, and smile. Just occasionally, you have to agree with Wolfgang Blau, director of digital strategy at the Guardian. “Yes, there’s a lot to worry about, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of risk; and there are many journalists who lose their jobs these days – but would it really be ‘un-journalistic’ to get excited by journalism’s fantastic new opportunities?” Just occasionally, you even find yourself agreeing with Jeff Jarvis, the guru of digital revolution.
“Optimism isn’t box office,” writes Jeff, reflecting on flaccid first-week takings for Disney’s Tomorrowland. “Dystopia is. But the truth is that dystopianism is a rarely about technology. It’s about people. The dystopian fears that his fellow man and woman are too stupid to use technology well, too stupid to see its risks, too timid to control its dangers, too venal to see beyond its temptations…” And dystopian daily drizzle is journalism’s default setting. Except just occasionally: like now.
This week the Guardian begins its round of farewell parties for Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief these past 20 years. This week Kath Viner takes his chair. And this week the fantastic new opportunities of a changed world are there for all to see: well over 7m unique browser visits on the net every day; well over 24m page impressions every day; a global reach from London to New York to Sydney; an abundance of vaulting ambition.
That, with added vision and many tough battles won, is Rusbridger’s legacy – and Viner’s inheritance. Of course your chief dystopian correspondent will want his tuppence-worth after the revels. Of course sunshine and smiles aren’t permanent fixtures. But it’s a miserable old world if you don’t celebrate achievements that are part of the past, part of the present, and part of journalism’s own tomorrowland.
