Page 215 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

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Where Do We Go from Here?

Possibilities in a Convergent Future

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Soon after the French Revolution started in 1789, the great English
poet William Wordsworth penned these memorable words: “Bliss was
it at that time to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.” He
captured the excitement of a watershed period of human endeavors
for his audience, but noted that the future belonged to the young.
That is the message of this final chapter: that the future is bright for
college graduates who are prepared to work hard. Fortune favors the
prepared mind. The future is bright for journalists and journalism, and
that future offers multiple possibilities for people who are prepared. It
helps, though, to pause briefly to look at the past and to see what we
can learn from it. As former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
once noted, the person who ignores history is condemned to repeat its
mistakes.
The news industry of the 19th century grew because of the availabil-
ity of some key infrastructures, including steam railways and electricity.
These innovations, in turn, boosted the development of the telegraph—
the Internet of the Victorian age. Expansion of the railways in the
United States and the United Kingdom stimulated the growth of the
telegraph. A boom in railway development was a feature of 1830s