David Carr during his Reddit Q&A:

Q: I’m a freshman in college right now & journalism is a career that interests me. Is there any advice you can share on being successful in journalism?

A: You have to make stuff. The tools of journalism are in your hands and no one is going to give a damn about what is on your resume, they want to see what you have made with your own little fingies. Can you use Final Cut Pro? Have you created an Instagram that is about something besides a picture of your cat every time she rolls over? Is HTML 5 a foreign language to you? Is your social media presence dominated by a picture of your beer bong, or is it an RSS of interesting stuff that you add insight to? People who are doing hires will have great visibility into what you can actually do, what you care about and how you can express on any number of platforms.

(via explore-blog)

David Carr writes about efforts to shape a code of conduct for content aggregators online, including Maria Popova’s new website, The Curator’s Code.

Quoting Simon Dumenco:

“We want some simple, common-sense rules. There should be some kind of variation of the Golden Rule here, which is that you should aggregate others as you would wish to be aggregated yourself.”

A code for remixing was something Kirby and I were trying to squeeze out of yesterday’s SXSW panel (not sure we succeeded) and something I’ve been thinking about since I drew this “Good Theft vs. Bad Theft” chart for Steal Like An Artist.

My gut check for creative theft: If I’m alone in an elevator with an artist I’ve stolen from: Does she pat me on the back and say good job, or does she punch me in the face?