By Dan Beyers, Published: February 14, 2014 / The Washington Post…
John S. Hendricks founded Discovery Communications because he loved learning stuff, and saw an opportunity in the early days of cable television to create a channel dedicated to nonfiction programming. Discovery is now a multibillion dollar, global enterprise, banging out new shows and new channels aimed at feeding our hunger to know more, and perhaps entertain us in the process.
Still.
Hendricks is not quite satisfied. He called me up to his Silver Spring office last week to discuss his latest venture, the Curiosity Project. The initiative represents Hendricks’ latest attempt to take people on a deeper dive into the big intellectual questions of our day. He hopes to serve up the latest research by exploiting what he sees is an unserved gap in the information that is presently available.
Television is all well and good, but it’s designed for a short attention span. Much of what you find on the Internet is not much better; so much is boiled down into 140-character tweets, one chart to explain the world, or five facts you didn’t know about boiled cabbage. At the other end of the extreme is the ivy-covered halls of higher education, where courses span semesters and require mortgage-size student loans. Go to article…
