I heard from Caroline McCarthy, one of the speakers at Tuesday night's Mashable: Next Up NYC event at the 92YTribeca.
A technology reporter for CNET, that's her on the right in the picture on the left from Moblogic on Flickr.
She had this to say about my post, State of the NYC Blogosphere: A Bunch of Twittering 20-Somethings.
"I do, however, want to take issue with the "Would you want to see a doctor who didn't go to medical school" remark — that's apples and oranges in my opinion. I didn't go to journalism school because I was offered an entry-level reporting job without it, and hence had the option to learn a craft from skilled editors and reporters (my colleagues' resumes run the gamut from BusinessWeek to the LA Times), while earning a modest salary. If I'd gone to journalism school, I would've driven myself into debt from paying tuition while being uncertain about what the job market would be when I graduated.
"It's not a new phenomenon; many of my 30- and 40-something colleagues who picked up the profession a decade or two ago did not attend journalism school either. My background was so completely off-the-grid (I was a history of science major) that when I interviewed for the CNET job, the editors had to give me a writing test because I had no writing samples to provide.
"Anyone can *try* to be a journalist, and anyone can contribute to the news. Making a living off it, well, we all know that isn't easy. Most of the audience, we knew in advance, was coming from the marketing and PR sectors and was interested in hearing about blogging as a business and its potential for profit in the current advertising recession.
"So that's why we talked about what we talked about. As an East Villager — a neighborhood that SHOULD have a great culture of independent blogging — I'm jealous of how well they've caught on in Brooklyn. That said, if my downstairs neighbor is any indicator, maybe we are on our way. :)"