Dylan Stableford speaks with University of Syracuse's Newhouse School of Journalism Dean David M. Rubin on the awards, the state of journalism, and how blogs and journalism scandals have affected the way the school teaches media:

mediabistro.com: What are your thoughts on the state of the media, 2006? What encourages you?

Rubin: There is such a wide array of media sources available, more so than any other time in history. If you want to be an informed person, you can do it with a computer and a broadband connection. And that's encouraging, because it breaks the monopoly of information. Another very encouraging sign is that we are seeing the reconsideration of big media, the bigness of big media — such as Time Warner's synergies, whether it really pays off. It's different from a decade ago.

mediabistro.com: What discourages you?

Rubin: I'm distressed by Wall Street's pressure [on media companies] to perform at financial levels and over shorter and shorter periods of time that are just untenable. It's the kind of pressure that leads Knight Ridder to sell its newspapers, and I'm not sure that we're better off.

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