Online Journalism Blog

“If you are a journalist, or becoming one, you may have already noticed this: They are raising the ante on what it takes to be a journalist.” Briggs

An additional quote was just as noticeable in my opinion:

“The hunter-gatherer model of journalism is no longer sufficient. Citizens can do their own hunting and gathering on the internet. What they need is somebody to add value to that information by processing it — digesting it, organizing it, making it usable.”

Chapter 2 talked about the new journalistic technologies and how to use them. This chapter doesn’t explain how to use them, but rather how to harness these tools to knock down barriers between journalist and reader to create a closer relationship.

Crowdsourcing was a news reporting method that was explained in the chapter and I thought it was a great invention. Here’s some info on crowdsourcing:

• it allows “enthusiastic communities to come together” and help give out info to the readers
• the info is focused solely on community-based news
• with crowdsourcing, communities can outperform large, paid companies with their extreme willingness to get the best info out about the thing(s) they are most enthusiastic about

Crowdsourcing caught my attention because I believe I am part of a website that crowdsources some of its news to the readers.

TruthAboutIt.net is a website providing detailed news and stories regarding the Washington Wizards. Being a die-hard Wizards fan, I contacted the founder of the site, asking if he would be interested in giving me a shot at writing for them. He agreed and I have been a contributing writer for the site since then. They allowed a member of the strict Washington Wizards community to come and bring his enthusiasm to provide information to the readers.

Crowsourcing was a term coined by Jeff Howe recently in 2006. Crowdsourcing is also important because it allows the readers to help choose what stories should be covered. It gives the reader a voice.

Patch.com is a community-based site covering local news that wouldn’t be seen in big-time newspapers. Just like Briggs states that crowdsourcing sites are made up of thousands of contributions, this is evident with Patch.

The site went from a small operation to a country-wide operation in just a few years thanks to those who helped give stories to be written about.

Not only does Patch allow contributors to give stories, they also have an area on the site that informs readers that if they come upon something in their town that catches their eye or is news-worthy to let the Patch editors know and they will have a writer cover that story ASAP! It is very cool stuff, but also a simple tactic:

Give the readers what they want.

“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.

“Previous generations of journalists — and other workers in all industries — had the luxury of expecting some supergeeks in their organization to take care of the digital duties for them. For better or worse, those days are gone.” –Mark Briggs.

Mark Briggs begins his book, JournalismNext, with some very valuable information about computer data, bits and bytes.

Knowing the size of computer data can help prevent you and whoever you send an email with an attachment to from clogging both servers. Why is this important info? Well from my personal experience, GMU makes a huge deal about students with clogged servers, which is why they continuously force us to clear out our inboxes so emails from professors can be received without trouble. Students can be heard across campus moaning and complaining while sighing “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” But it’s important if we want to get the necessary emails from our professors about class.

He goes on to explain that sending anyone with an email containing an attachment larger than 1MB can cause chaos among the sender and recipient. Hmm….that could be why I “never got” half my emails freshman year…

Briggs also gets into plug-ins and extensions, which came up when Aram Zucker-Scharff came and talked to our class regarding the blog site I’m currently writing on. As a Firefox user, I’ll be taking advantage of the site he mentions where I can go for cool plug-ins for the Firefox browser.

I had seen on some sites I search that I could subscribe to its RSS feed. To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what the heck this was…until Briggs explained it.

“When you subscribe to an RSS feed, you create a convenient, one-stop information shop tailored to your needs and interests.” -Briggs.

I’m no rocket scientist, but that sounds easy enough for me to understand. I’ll be taking advantage of it now! In fact, I’m setting mine up once this sentence is finished…

(2 minutes later.)

Looks good!