December 12, 2008
Newspapers are the place reader’s turn to for real news, well written in depth articles that for those of us who still appreciate journalism can turn too to be informed.
Now I am not trying to say that you cannot find the same quality work online, often times the online version of a newspaper will be identical to that of the print edition.
Though with the way people read on the web or should I say scan, writers have to change their style to fit the online format.
It has become more about getting eyeballs then getting loyal readers, but how can you blame them if that’s what’s going to make them money then of course the companies will call for short underdeveloped stories with bold keywords and bulleted lists.
I consider it to be the dumbing down of society and its not just journalism that is affected but examples of this intellectual freefall also come from television and movies as well. Reality series with half naked uneducated women fighting over washed up celebrities rule the market, people can’t seem to get enough dumb!
That’s why I turn to print an actual paper where I control the pages not a mouse, where I can sit and read it wherever I like. It makes me feel informed and there is a since of pride in the work that is put into a daily paper.
Is print dead?
“On an average day, roughly 51 million people still buy a newspaper, and 121 million people in all still read one,” says the 2007 Annual Report of American Journalism.
It may be on life support buts its not dead, its just going to take young willing journalists to ride out the storm and restore the world with the POWER OF PRINT
December 5, 2008
Americans are infatuated with celebrities; whole shows such as TMZ are dedicated to keeping the public informed on what their favorite celebrities are doing on any given day.
With technology so far advanced and practically everyone having a camera on their phone it is hard for celebrities to stay out of the limelight. A wild night on the town or a wardrobe mishap can be online and being viewed by millions just moments after the picture is snapped.
Athletes in particular are subject to these snapshots and more and more they are having a negative impact on their careers. Take the website Drunk Athletes for example were the whole site is filled with pictures of professional athletes drinking in different scenarios.
Often times it brings negative publicity because the athlete’s commitment to the team is often questioned. The bone I have to pick is that if the drinking age is 21 and the athletes in the pictures are over 21 then who’s right is it for anyone to judge.
Matt Leinart of the Arizona Cardinals drew the most heat, when over the summer pictures of him and Nick Lachey giving beer bongs to a group of bikini clad women surfaced.
Matt Leinart is 24 years old and the quarterback of an NFL team is he not allowed to party and have a good time like everyone else. As long as these athletes are not breaking the law then I feel the public needs to ease up.
But until that happens, we might as well say, “Yo bartender, uno mas. Por Favor.”
November 7, 2008
It’s like in the movies when the young boy is at the dance and is too afraid to ask the girl to dance for fear of rejection.
That’s me to afraid to ask HTML to dance.
Actually terrified with anything to do with the Web or computers, I’m the guy who has trouble with itunes and just getting Microsoft word to cooperate is difficult.
I went and purchased Building a Website for Dummies the 3rd edition, which immediately made me realize that if people didn’t understand the first or second edition how was I possibly going to understand the third? Ha-ha
All joking aside I didn’t purchase the book and realize that the web is ever changing and technology calls for a third edition.
This doesn’t mean I am still not on edge about the whole thing. Honesty going in if I knew I had to create a website I probably would have bailed, but I didn’t and now am learning more than I could have imagined about the web.
I’m already making progress, I took this simple survey, which was probably for middle school kids and got 8 out of 10 correct. Impressive I know, but I guarantee 2 months ago I would have been lucky to get 4 correct.
Good thing I stuck around because the web and online journalism is not going away and if I want to pursue a career in this field I must be willing to tackle it head on.
So I guess what I am really trying to say is…
HTML may I have this dance?
October 31, 2008
Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a changing.” Technology is an ever-changing specimen and to be successful in any field one must learn to adapt to those changes. Journalists of the present and future will face many challenges will confronting the technological advances of journalism. “There will be no transition to the web-the web exists and is as different from 20th century journalism as apples are from hand grenades.” It is how they deal with these changes that will decide their journalistic fate.
The notion of blogging may irk some traditional journalists, though it would be to their advantage to pull out the positives and use it for their professional gain. People in today’s world want their news now, and they want it fast. So a writer does not have much time, before the reader may move on to the next story. Like blogging, journalists need to keep it short and to the point because they are just one click away from losing their audience.
Traditional media must keep its ears to the streets and be looking for new innovative ways to advance itself. To be ahead of the curve, journalists must be willing to go out on a limb, to experiment with different projects. This does not mean we must abandon the “formal gatekeepers” of journalism; experts are still needed in the field. Traditional media must embrace the change and think of technology as an asset not a hindrance.
October 3, 2008
O you didn’t know, your ass better call somebody!!
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Children of all Ages.
Degeneration X proudly brings to you!
The Tag Team Champions of the World.
The Road Dogg Jesse James.
The Bad Ass Billy Gun.
The New Age Outlaws!!!!
That’s how I used to start every post I ever made during the time I played the Jesse James on my online fed.
A fed is an online federation a community of people who share and interest in wrestling enough that you would take the persona of an actual wrestler and portray onto message boards.
If you were good you moved on and would get a shot to fight in title matches.
I had a passion for wrestling at the time and there were not to many places to go to share that passion but the fed was one of them.
Online communities are a place people go to escape reality, you are able to become anything you want to be. To escape from your day job and become something you have always dreamed of being.
World of War Craft and DOTA are examples.
They let people experience something out of the ordinary it lets you belong to something bigger than yourself!
Like the Road Dogg always used to say, “ If you ain’t down with that we got two words for ya… SUCK IT!”
I would never actually say that to someone in the real world but the Road Dogg can say whatever he wants.
September 25, 2008
Every morning my sophomore year of high school I was at Ned’s Doughnut shop by 6:00 am sharp, newspaper in hand. The sports section of the Orange County Register was the first thing I would get to and read it cover to cover.
Now I hear newspapers are a dying? (Statistics on newspaper decline since 2006)
Well somebody call Doogie Howser M.D.!
We need to revive print media and bring it back to life.
Of course there are pros and cons to both print and online media.
With print people like Jenifer Woodard say its not current enough that your reading old news and its much easier to read the stories online so you can pick and choose the ones you want.
With online media I believe a con is that people want things and they want it now so stories are being written hastily and with the intention of getting it out on the web as soon as possible.
Its like my friend Edward Derbes wrote about in the lost art of the album.
Newspapers to me are like music they are an art. They are constructed to flow and keep the reader moving from one article to the next.
Online is one article at a time in a very regimented order with no fluidity.
Though maybe I am being old fashioned because growing up I had a favorite newspaper writer his name was Kevin Ding and now he only writes online and to me it just isn’t the same.
September 19, 2008
Wait…What the world is flat?
How do you know?
O, I read it on the Internet duh!
This may seem like a funny concept, or a scene out of the movie Idiocracy.
Though in reality it is the principle argument that Andrew Keen makes in his argument against where Web 2.0 is taking our culture.
Keen believes with no formal gatekeepers the web is not a trustworthy media.
Wikipedia for example, which has become the third most visited site for information, but has no reporters or editors and its information can be changed by anyone anywhere.
Most teachers and professors do not allow students to credit wikipedia as a source when doing research projects, which is alarming because as noted earlier its the third most visited site to gather information, a site that is not even recognized as a credible source in the world of academia.
If enough people dedicated their lives to reporting that the world is flat on the site, years from now kids growing up might learn to believe this absurd theory.
Totally reversing everything that scholars and science have taught us. It makes it to easy to skew information or worse completely falsify facts.
So taking the infinite monkey theorem into consideration, I say lets not be monkeys. Let us all be different animals, I will be an elephant and I will do my best to objectively and morally report sports. You can be whatever you want; you just don’t want to be a monkey. Flamingo perhaps?
September 12, 2008
With the Internet being so easy accessible today, new forms of media have been introduced. One of those media’s is the sports blogging world. A world where topics range from Cheering for Injuries is Good for America, which can be found on deadspin.com or NBA superstar Gilbert Arenas who is credited with being the first athlete super blogger.
Anyway you look at it journalism is changing due to technology and the HBO series Costas Now takes an in depth look into how the sports world is evolving. Buzz Bissinger Pulitzer Prize winning author of Friday Night Lights had very strong and heated opinions on what blogs are doing to journalistic integrity.
There are arguments from both sides on whether blogging is a professional and credible form of journalism.
Though from all of my experiences with blogs I see nothing but bias opinion based nonsense, which is usually followed by countless profane and often racist remarks posted by anyone who has access to the Internet.
Yes some blogs are written well, with integrity and journalistic responsibility, but for the most part those blogs are written by actual journalists or athletes who wish to give their fans some insight into their lives.
Though to often they are written by your average Joe who thinks he has the right to tell you about how much Eli Manning sucks. I know a place where everyone can go and talk about how much better their team is than everyone else’s, it’s called a BAR!!!
