Eye-Opener: Memo

AnyOnE cAn wrItE On-LInE

Today in Class, Ashlee and Jenna presented Chapters 3-5 of We the Media.

Ashlee brought up the point about information being an ocean, it deep and vast. She also pointed out that hacking is not just limited to ruining your computer (vandalism) but also tinkering with technology in order to improve (this is something new I've learned, because I've always associated hacking with mischief).

Jenna emphasized that blogs are more personal and for corporations it gives a 'personal' face to the company. Blogs are more impressionable compared to the flawless robotic wording of PR's.

During our discussions Evans inquired to the whole class the credibility of on-line journalism versus print journalism. J defended print journalism, he said that since more time went into print publication especially the editings, reporting and writing. Evans countered this by saying that on-line journalism is easier to correct if mistakes were to occur.

Chris U. added to the defense of J, by saying that on-line doesn't have many laws that would regulate it, and since financial responsibilty is not a big issue, on-line writers have nothing to lose per se.

Nancy blogged a quote that I also found interesting "Always make new mistakes" (Chp 4). The author also agreed that he likes this because other people are correcting his mistakes. In the case of on-line journalism, the mistakes could easily be fixed. The assumption that "your audience knows more than you" engenders this mantra. My question to this, is would this ability to correct mistakes faster make the journalist careless in reporting and writing the news?

In class I agreed with what Johanna said that on-line journalism would be trustworthy if there were editors in place to check the writing. They would act as filters in a way sifting news from muck.

Posted by Michael Diezmos at November 16, 2005 3:16 PM