My classmates Clifton and Glenn spoke about the pros and cons of being "self-made" or of one day being their own boss. While I do believe that there are benefits to being one's own boss, I agree with Glenn when he says that "we need each other."

As writers, we are always encouraged to make ourselves stand out from the rest with our writing style, or, as mentioned in some of my previous posts, to find our "voice" as journalists. Of course, this is important to us as journalists, however with the hundreds and thousands of writers out there, it is nearly impossible not to blend in at some point in time, making self- publication not impossible, but very difficult.

How are we to distinguish the reputable writers from, let's say, blogger Joe Schmoe? This is where the different agencies come in. Even Brent Cunningham, in his article "How jounalism can regain its relevance," says that journalism is not just a hobby you can pick up or a side job to another career. Not just anyone can write an article, book, etc. and call themselves journalists. We need the agencies to weed out the skill and we should not just rely on someone to "discover" us.

Don't get me wrong, aspirations and goals are extremely important to have, and it is admirable for someone to have such aspirations in a time where it seems that there is little hope for our profession. However, we as journalists need to stick together so that in the future it isn't so extreme to have a goal of being a self-published writer.