At the San Fran college media convention some of us at the Reporter currently attended I didn't learn a lot about journalism I didn't already know. This could have been due to some poor workshop choices on my part, but what I did learn was to appreciate the quality of the writing and staff at the Reporter.


I was astounded by how some of the other college paper staff conducted themselves during workshops. People interrupted the actual speakers, made rude comments, sat in the front row and texted for the length of the session in clear sight. Now I'll be the first to admit that a few of the sessions were painful to sit through, but it's 50 minutes of wasted time-life goes on. Some of the speakers or other students and advisers in the sessions could be future contacts or networking opportunities. There were so many students making poor decisions that reflected not only on them but on their entire paper.


Also, while some of the other college newspapers there were something to see, more often than not I was happy with the overall quality of the MSU Reporter. Other papers might have had really gripping front pages or layout ideas we could emulate but I feel we have a pretty good grip on at least the writing side of things. It's a shame we couldn't bring any awards home.


One thing I did learn from the convention...it was in relation to sports but I think it could work for any type of story. The speaker stressed that the story isn't always in the press release or what's going on on the stage. He gave the example of a new sports reporter that blew it and missed an interview with the star of the game. In desperation the reporter grabbed an old man who cleaned the courts after all the games. Turns out he had worked there so long and knew all the inside information and stories that the reporter ended up saving his job and producing a great segment. Anyway, moral of the story is to look outside the box for the story within the story.

CNN anxiety

 I hope I'm not the only one who suffers from this crazy pre- occupation with the news.

At times if I haven't checked the news in days I will wake up in the morning with a bad feeling. I'm anxious that something is going on in the world that I am unaware of. Even if I watched the news at night who knows what has been going on the other side of the planet while I'm sleeping. 

This condition was only made worse when I lived in constant fear of the news quizzes in certain mass communication classes. I'm usually pretty on top of the news due to my aforementioned issues but those quizzes were something else. I swear that the most obscure facts would pop up on those things. Not the top stories but the oddities you really had to dig for.

But honestly, is this kind of anxiety such a bad thing? I think its better than the alternative.

 The majority of the population  walks around in ignorance and could care less about what is happening outside their own little bubble. It is embarrassing to me that t.v. crews are able to find citizens walking around that don't know the name of our vice president or what country borders us to the south.

I'm most definitely not the most cultured or informed individual by any means. But I think we all suffer from too much ethnocentrisim and nationalism. I love America but I am not surprised by other countries negative opinions of us.

    

Blogging between the lines

 Another article about blogging, same old story. Blogs and "established journalism" are meeting and checking one another out with much hesitation.

One part of the article I found particularly interesting was that the San Francisco Chronicle has hired a blogging and interactive editor. If your newspaper is going to invest in the blogging phenomena I think it is a great idea to have someone specifically devoted to its upkeep. When a blog is affiliated with an established newspaper it is important that blogs, light- hearted and opinionated as they may be, are on pace with the standards of the particular paper.

The idea of newspaper staff participating in blogs makes me nervous to a certain extent. Especially if the blog topic had to do with the writer's story. Say for example that a newspaper staff was an active participant in a political blog. If that staffer goes on to write an article about candidates for the upcoming election he is undermining his work. Though his story may be objective the public can easily look on the blog and see his personal opinion. I can see this causing a problem if questions are raised about a writer's objectivity and credentials.

You are less likely to run into problems if a journalist just loves blogging about their pet turtle, for example. Chances are, they aren't going to be writing a story about a turtle and risking their objectivity in that instance. But where do you draw the line?

I think the idea of The Dallas Morning News' editorial board blog was an inventive one. Since the public knows, or should know, that the editorial page is opinion, I think there would be less risk in the editors blogging about personal insight and how the page was comprised. 

Linking Assignment

After half a century of scholarly work, new documents about the lives of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg have been made public.

"Certainly, after 50 years, the unique historical value of these records outweighs any secrecy rationale," said Thomas S. Blanton, the director of the National Security Archive, which filed the petition, with support from more than a dozen scholars. The archive, based at George Washington University, is a nonprofit group that uses the Freedom of Information Act to challenge government secrecy.

Among the historians were John Lewis Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett professor of military and naval history at Yale, and Ronald Radosh, adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and past president of the Historians of American Communism.

The disconnect on Blog opinion

I found the article, "Blogs Influence Availability of News, but Not Quality" to be very interesting. The statistic that really made me think was that over 50 percent of journalists read blogs at least two to three times a week.

That study fails to clarify if the journalists were reading for work-related reasons or just for entertainment, however, the information is conflicting with my earlier thoughts that so called "professional journalists" feared the spread of citizen journalism. I am happy to see a growing number of journalists expanding and supplementing the way news is collected.

Like most online information sources, blogs must be taken with a grain of salt. Of the journalists surveyed, the majority responded that they used blogs as a way to gain insight into a debate or discussion rather than as a source of breaking news or for validating news sources. In my opinion, this cautious but open- minded approach is a healthy one. We are not at a point where we can trust strangers on the other side of the world wide web to be valid sources but we can certainly use blogs and other forums to gain insight on public opinion.

Scott Gant, author of "We're All Journalists Now", made a comment on page 25 of his book about the necessity to recognize blogs that I completely agree with.

"Among other things, the Web has created an enormous supply of people who want to share information and ideas with a wide audience, and there are increasing
numbers of people interested in hearing and discussing what they have to say."

This is such a valid point because if the general public is not ignoring the issues and discussions appearing in blogs it would be irresponsible for journalists to do so. After all, everyone is most interested in the news that affects them.

Our society is based on a system of checks and balances. The media has traditionally served as one way of keeping the government in line. Citizen journalists, especially bloggers, are now playing the role of watch dogs of the media. For example, the blog Powerline was able to discover irresponsible journalism (regarding George W. Bush's military service) from CBS and Dan Rather that knocked the network and several of its workers off their pedestals. I view some public monitor of the media as a positive thing. Skepticism has its place and time.

Statistics currently show a disconnect between journalists' opinion on blogs and the general public's opinion on blogs. It also seems conflicting that studies have determined around 80 percent of journalists do not consider blogs a serious form of journalism and yet about that same percent check blogs on a regular basis. Obviously there is material worth reading out there.

For every blog that breaks news about presidential scandal or contains insightful comments on the state of the environment, there are twenty more blogs that serve as writer's diaries. These blogs range from detailing a summer vacation to describing how cute a new puppy is in excrutiating detail.

I think it's worth sorting through all the bad to get to the good.

Citizen Journalism

" The 11 layers of citizen journalism" by Steve Outing reads like a beginners guide for those hesitant to test the waters of citizen journalism. I find the prospect to be a necessary revolution of journalism but it is easy to see the less glorious aspects.

For those that consider themselves to be 'professional journalists' a world where the average Joe, with no degree, ethics or training, is attempting to inform others could be terrifying. With no higher order separating journalists from citizens, a journalism degree or job title may be rendered worthless.

What exactly are the qualifications to be a journalist? The answer is so subjective that I hesitate to refer to myself with the word. I've had classes in news writing and I've had articles published in a college newspaper but does that make me a better candidate to report than the next person? I'm not so sure.

As a student of mass communications I am thrilled that there is so much buzz around citizen journalism. It means that people want to share, comment on, and contribute to news. Isn't that the point of everything we do? We write in hopes that people will read or talk in hopes that people will listen. Thus we should provide a forum for audiences to get involved.

With this idea in mind, allowing readers to comment on articles (Outing's first step) is the very least we could do. Outing mentions that a small number of media outlets have taken even this small step, which is something I don't understand. There will always be those ignorant posters leaving rude comments but readers should have the freedom to learn as much as possible and decide what to believe. As mass communication majors we are taught to report news without any bias. Most of the time I believe this is a good standard. However, some great discussions and ideas are born of opinion meeting opposing opinion. We should encourage and help facilitate this opinion exchange, even if just through allowing public comment.

I'll spare you a breakdown of my thoughts on each of Outing's remaining listed steps. Needless to say, certain forms of citizen journalism are best left for specific outlets. For example, a stand alone citizen journalism website or print edition of such would likely be more trouble than it's worth for the circulation of the Reporter.

As far as websites like OhMyNews.com, with 70 percent citizen content and 30 percent professional reporters, they have their place in the media. There is no reason why sites like this can't co- exist with the more traditional, respected news outlets such as cnn.com.

The moral of the citizen journalism story? Go forth with caution. Give the public options and as much information as possible. It's just like the phrase they drilled into our heads in elementary school: knowledge is power.