Journalists should join the fight for Net neutrality

What does a free and open Internet mean for the future of journalism? Quite a lot, writes Kat Aaron, a journalist with the Investigative Reporting Workshop and media policy fellow, on MediaShift. Net neutrality, the principle protecting equal treatment of all content on digital networks, provides the foundation for innovative crowd sourcing projects and platforms for minority and low-income communities to amplify their voices via online dialogues and specialized reporting. "Despite journalism's increasing reliance on a neutral network, most journalists and their trade associations have been silent on this issue," Aaron writes. "To preserve the tools and technologies most reporters take for granted requires vigilance, organizing, and yes, the a-word: advocacy."