In a New York Time Magazine interview conducted by Amy Chozick, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger explains how contemporary technologies have democratized expression whereas some older ones inhibited it, making non-experts passive:

“Question:

You’ve played piano since you were a child, and you’ve written about parallels between this pursuit and digital news. Can you explain that?

Alan Rusbridger:

Amateur music-making used to be very commonplace and was valued in its own right. When recorded sound came along, most people became the passive receivers of other people’s music. I do think that mirrors something that’s going on in journalism at the moment, which is that anybody can blog, anybody can tweet, anybody can write and publish.

Question:

You’ve said you want to make The Guardian a platform as well as a publisher. Is this an effort to tap into that?

Alan Rusbridger:

Absolutely. For years, news organizations had a quasi monopoly on information simply because we had the means of distribution. I think if as a journalist you are not intensely curious about what has been created by people who are not journalists, then you’re missing out on a lot.”