Online Journalism Blog

Mark Potts, creator of Washingtonpost.com, showed us how journalism works without using the typical inverted pyramid, who/what/when/where/why style.

He showed us how good Wikipedia can be, despite its reputation.

He also showed us how Facebook was used as a storytelling device as well as Storify.

How to get the audience involved:

• Crowdsourcing (at both local and hyperlocal levels)
• Comments
• Facebook

When creating a blog, know what you do and do it best.

People who blog do it to be an authority in their community and to be respected for their passionate dedication rather than for money. These same people want their audience to become passionate and care.

The blogs tell people what is going on in that specific community that is not being covered by anyone else.

• Computational journalism: Using the computer to tell stories
• API: Giving people ability to create data tables

As a Twitter user, Potts surprisingly felt that it was not a useful tool except for publicity. When he posts a new blog on his site, he will post that URL on his Twitter and gets many hits from that.

The most important technological tool for journalists in the last five years?

The cell phone.

With social media, the super fast speed can be both an advantage and a disadvantage because some people are struggling to keep up with the need to publish as soon as possible and multiple times throughout the day instead of having one deadline.

It also exposes laziness because journalists may not have the pride in their work to get it right the firs time instead of doing it lazily and waiting for their editor to fix the mistakes.

Newspapers are struggling to realize that there are websites with better writing to give the same information that they give the day after.

Living in a “river of news,” it is important for each person to individually be able to filter their own news.

“Every college journalist should have a blog.” -Mark Briggs

Well, good! Because I have one. Do you?

As Briggs talks about, blogging is a really important and unique way of developing a community with readers and publishing info in a timely manner.

I bolded those last few words because I believe that blogs are awesome at dishing out creative information that is unlike what you read in magazines and newspapers at an up-to-the-second rate. I live off blogs in a way. I get a lot of my news information by means of blogs. Why? Because they can get me what I want when I want it. And I want it NOW!

But Briggs is right when he says that “Blogs are not magic. Be warned: writing a successful blog takes dedication and determination.” That’s the truth if I ever heard it! They are time-consuming. Rather than watching my favorite sports team play on the tube right now or hanging out with friends, I’m sitting like a log in front of the computer! For you reading this! Anyway, back to Briggs:

He states that Dan Gilmor is credited with the first-ever blog in 1999 for the San Jose Mercury News, which gave way for thousands of other blogs to join in on the fun. So, allow me to take this moment to thank Mr. Gilmor. I didn’t realize this but I’m glad Briggs touched on the fact that people used the terror attacks of 9/11 to voice their thoughts, opinions and responses to what happened. He explains it as being very raw, but able to “usher a new era of interactivity between writer and reader.”

After giving the reader some blogging definitions, Briggs goes on to explain about customizing your blog’s appearance. This is really important. Who wants to read a web site with an all-white background and plain ol’ skinny black text? No one. People want things that will catch their eye and your blog’s appearance can do this, thus attracting readers when they come across your page. Hopefully the appearance of this blog catches your eye somewhat.

An important idea he talks about is being direct in your writing of a blog. Very important. I know many students (middle school, high school, college) like to lollygag around the topic they are supposed to be writing about in a homework assignment from their English teacher so that they cover the two-page minimum. Well, that’s not the case with blogs. They are fun and bloggers should have a good attitude when writing, according to Briggs. While having some fun and enjoying their time, bloggers should get right to the point for the reader’s convenience. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.

In. Out. Boom.