How is Publishing Changing in the Digital Age?

Interview w/ Clay Shirky, Professor of Interactive Telecommunications, NYU.

Excerpt:

"Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done."

"In ye olden times of 1997, it was difficult and expensive to make things public, and it was easy and cheap to keep things private. Privacy was the default setting. We had a class of people called publishers because it took special professional skill to make words and images visible to the public. Now it doesn’t take professional skills. It doesn’t take any skills. It takes a Wordpress install."

Do you agree with this definition of publishing? Which professional skills do you think are "no longer required"?

H.L. Mencken said “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one”. How would you update this?