Yesterday I volunteered at the Chicago New Media Summit (CNMS08). I got a sense of what’s going on in the new media industry in Chicago and I met a lot of interesting people. I was surprised that the format of the program did not have any Q&A time specifically allotted (a few presenters made time to ask for questions but most did not). There was a panel on the future of education and one of the presenters brought out the idea that these kids today know so much about new media because they’ve grown up with it. This article by Siva Vaidhyanathan does a good job of explaining why this is false. This assumption can encourage bad educational policies if some educators believe that kids today are born with the digital skills they need.

Another speaker at CNMS was Jane Hirt, recently named the new managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. She spoke about her success managing the Trib’s commuter tabloid the RedEye - a rare physical paper that has been a financial success in recent years. One thing she mentioned was that they see the competition of the RedEye as anything people do to pass the time. I wonder how that translates to the mission of the Trib? Here’s Chicagoist’s take.