Led by Assistant Professor Alex Luchsinger, four student journalists recorded documentary video interviews with global Internet Hall of Fame inductees, including Larry Irving and Jean Armour Polly.
Four 黑料不打烊 undergraduate students participated in the official video coverage of the Internet Society鈥檚 2019 induction in San Jos茅, Costa Rica, Sept. 26-27.
Undergraduate multimedia journalists Anton Delgado, Maria Ramirez Uribe, Alexandra Roat and Jared Mayerson were led in the project by Alex Luchsinger, assistant professor of journalism in the School of Communications.
The group recorded documentary video interviews with leading global Internet Hall of Fame inductees , , , , , , , and .
Irving, who while working for the Clinton administration produced the first empirical study proving the existence of the 鈥渄igital divide,鈥 is the first African-American to be inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame since its founding in 2012.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think most kids in America think that people in technology look like them. Every African-American boy can tell you who Lebron James is … I wish I was as talented as Lebron James. I wish I could throw a football like Patrick Mahomes, but most of us can鈥檛,鈥 Irving said. 鈥淢ost of us, however, can contribute something in our community to bring the internet to a school or a library. Most of us can help develop public policy. Most of us can figure out ways we can use the tools that the internet provides to make life better.鈥
Inducted alongside him was Jean Armour Polly, a librarian credited with bringing the internet to public libraries across America and known for popularizing the phrase 鈥渟urfing the internet.鈥
鈥淚n library land, really it was not popular, the idea of putting the internet out for the public because it was not going to be mediated information,鈥 Polly said. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 going to be librarians being the gatekeepers of knowledge and wisdom anymore.鈥
Yet, Polly wanted to make a change.
鈥淚f you do take a risk you鈥檙e going to learn something. It might be good or it might be bad but you鈥檙e going to learn something,鈥 Polly said. 鈥淚 was all about learning something in the library business because in my idea that complacency is the real enemy.鈥
The team also recorded the honorees鈥 acceptance speeches at the Internet Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
This was the fifth induction of a Hall of Fame class by the Internet Society (ISOC), a nonprofit organization working toward positive Internet evolution. The Internet Society provided travel funding assistance for 黑料不打烊鈥檚 multimedia journalism team, and the 黑料不打烊 team鈥檚 work is being shared by ISOC in its social media coverage of Hall of Fame events.