Somewhere There Is a Pony

Underneath all this manure there is a pony. This quote means somewhere underneath all the crap you are giving me there are some golden nuggets of information. This is what my 9th grade world history teacher, whose name escapes me at the moment, at Irmo High School (Go Yellow Jackets) in Columbia, South Carolina use to say. I heard this phrase again today for the first time in a long time. Now keep this saying in mind.

Today I had the pleasure to miss class and attend the William O’Neil Lecture in Business Journalism featuring Alan Sloan. Allan Sloan is the editor at large for Fortune magazine. Mr. Sloan spoke to a room full of journalism students, business majors, and one lone theater student.

I actually think it’s cool the theater student was at this lecture. We journalism heads don’t really have the opportunity interact very much with the theater, dance, and art students unless we are already friends with some, but that’s an issue for another blog.

Now back to the topic

So Mr. Sloan was here to touch on the topic of “Is Journalism Dead? And Should it Be?”
In this blog, I am supposed to summarize the lecture and discuss points he made I agree or disagree with.
I will discuss a talking point first.

One student, my friend Johnny, asked Mr. Sloan if our generation will have jobs in the next 30 years. Mr. Sloan said yes but what those jobs will be he doesn’t know.

I agree. There are jobs in this world that exist to day that did not exist 10 years ago. In journalism, there will be jobs that exist in 10, 15, and 30 years from now that don’t exist today. The field is at a crossroads. It has to some how reconcile its past with its future. The business is trying to figure out how to move forward and incorporate new technology but keep the structure of the traditional newspapers and broadcast alive. How the business will work this out I don’t know. Mr. Sloan couldn’t answer it either. Like all things I believe journalism as a business will find its footing.


I honestly cannot summarize the lecture.I don’t think it came full circle. He really didn’t touch on the topic until the Q&A portion. To me the lecture was unfocused. I know I wasn’t the only student who expressed this sentiment afterwards. I feel like I learned more about his family than the topic. I do appreciate that Mr. Sloan went into how he started out as a business journalist. That is important especially if you are speaking at the William J. O’Neil Business Journalism series. I do feel the lecture could have been more focused on the topic than it was.

However somewhere I found the pony.