SUNDAY, 22 MAY 2010 – Having spent a Tuna Salad at Willow Creek Grill for $9.29, I lost my $10 note.
I have a couple more coins and counted them as my tokens of blessings.
I was delayed for my flight due to insufficient cash to call a cab and also for the fact that I could exercise my increasingly numb legs over the past few days without my casual runs.
“Sorry miss, it’s too late. The US Airways closes 30 minutes before boarding time,” said the lobby agent down at the US Airways counter when I was about to check-in.
She handed me standby tickets, and I had hours to wait.
As I was approaching the newsstands, I saw the big pictures of the day: The Economist issue on water, and TIME’s Facebook feature on security and privacy issues. With my pads and pens, my iPad is also thinking.
Life’s most natural element, which, for your information, happens to cover 80% of our globe, has become increasingly scarce.
Technology has provided social media for community-building and most importantly, has served as a platform for sustainable businesses and their network marketing efforts.
I was eyeing on Harvard Business Review for a little entertainment during my stay here at the airport, but above its barcode, it says that it costs $16.95.
Does information wants to be free?
Recalling the conference I attended a few weeks ago on the Future of Journalism, hosted by Stanford Law School, I can say for a fact that I don’t know.
“While I was covering the war in Afghanistan in 2001, a colleague from a major U.S. paper informed me: “We’ve captured Kunduz!” We? Never mind editorial independence–she identified with the Northern Alliance because they were backed by the United States. CNN mimicked Fox News’ perpetually waving stars-and-stripes logo and TV anchors from Maine to Hawaii sported flag lapel pins–a prop on state television in dictatorships. Even when the U.S. is at war, reporters should remain neutral. Skeptics make better journalists than patriots.”
- An excerpt from It’s Skepticism, Stupid: The Progressive Populist by Ted Hall
The questions discussed during the conference were the following:
1. If news can be freely copied and distributed, will anyone bother to invest in newsgathering?
2. Is the free content culture of the internet worth the sacrifice of traditional media?
3. Can intellectual property law and content paywalls help sustain professional journalism?

As I ask myself these questions, I ask myself a similar question:
What can be bought for $2?
On my pink notebook with the butterfly stitching on its cover, still having its price tag from Borders bookstore that I bought since I started doing journalism, I saw that it costs $16.99.

I looked over my iPad, the tablet that was predicted to become the next generation’s media boom, as big technology corporations such as Google, Microsoft, and Nokia are developing the second tablet, according to the Bloomberg Newsweek of May 16 – today.
Looking back at my notes from the conference, panelists concluded their heated discussion that it is not information, but it’s people who wants to be freed, or simply free.
I learned that amateur journalists who are working for startup news organizations often do not have the right to stay and get paid, even though their articles have become part of the organization’s database.
Sites providing freelance bloggers, writers, laid-off journalists and reporters from all around the world such as The Huffington Post, Politico, and ProPublica are facing the trouble of questioning the value of their “intellectual property” in accordance to the rights of their organization.
Due to the lack of economic power for amateurists, it becomes a question of anti-trust law as opposed to the property’s law.
While my iPad is thinking, there’s an aura of skepticism clouding on my mind.
Thinking about what to invest on next, I looked over at the butterfly on the cover of my notebook. Can this pink notebook become an intellectual property if I trust that it will be?
I don’t know.
Finishing my fresh greens, my eyes are opened wide like a tuna.
Upon my publication of the $1 I got that morning until I’m back from New York, I realized that in the end, I have spent 2 hours of my time, writing on this pink notebook.