Rob Curley, the current Vice President of Washingtonpost Newsweek Interactive, visited George Mason University’s Online Journalism class, wearing his “I’m a Mac” T-shirt and brought many smiles across the room with his clever sense of humor and well made presentation.

            He started off his presentation by mentioning the four reasons people use the internet.

1. Passion. People want to connect to things they are passionate about.
2. Practical. People looking for directions, movie reviews etc.
3. Playful. To play games, watch movies etc.
4. Porn. To satisfy their insatiable sexual appetite.  
   
               His most memorable quote was “we are not in the paper business. We are in the news business.” So regardless of platform good writing goes a long way. “You write something once and it lives forever,” Curley said.

            Curley explained that in the modern world of journalism it is not only important to write well. Journalism students nowadays need to think of having a bigger skill set than just good writing. Speaking about journalists he said “if they can just write, they are not good enough.”

            Curley mentioned the importance of being good with computers. The importance of knowing how to use programs such as Dreamweaver or Photoshop is paramount.

            He was one of the people behind the driving force of creating onbeing, a part of the Washington post website, where ordinary people residing in the Washington D.C. area are interviewed.

            Ronnel Cristobel, a George Mason student asked Curley how the Washington Post moderates comments on their website.

            Curley explained that the Washington Post follows the first ten posts of all users, and then tags them in a database as either sane or insane. He explained that if a member misbehaves they receive a warning email.

            If they continue misbehaving then they are categorized as completely insane and their posts become no longer visible to other members

            Overall Curley painted a pretty picture for the future of journalism, and sees that journalism is very much alive, not dying like many print journalists see it.