How I Aided in the Destruction of Traditional News Media

One of my good friends is a very talented journalists who has worked at/for several of the big news media outlets across the country. I think the work she does is really fascinating. A lot of it right now is about how media, social media and businesses connect, and we usually end up talking a lot of news stuff when we get together. One topic that nearly always comes up is how user generated content is changing the face of journalism world -- this includes everything from personal blogs to articles written by readers. Content is available EVERYWHERE and if a traditional outlet doesn't want to pay REAL talent for it, they can get a fool like me to write them an article for a fee no greater than seeing my name in print. Last year, I committed a number of "faux paus" by 1) endeavoring to get our ski resort advertised in a major metropolitan paper (that's no way to keep the riff raff out ;) and 2) giving my "user generated content" to WaPo for free. Sorry, the idea of my name in the paper and my handiwork in print was too much to resist.* So here's the article with pictures by my sister-in-law (on the infamous Nikon CoolPix with substandard USB port...) 6 business days! * I imagine the last time my name was in print was probably the one time a scored a goal in all 4 years of playing high school soccer...