informal oral presentation reflection
Today in news writing, Evan gave a wonderful presentation that inspired a question. Unfortunately, I did not present the question in class because other students had their hands raised and time was running short.
Yes, weblogs are a fantastic means for the common man to report news, announce information, publish personal stories, etc. As we discussed in class, weblogs are not the sole medium in internet reporting- there are forums, wikis(one of my personal favorites that actually wasn't mentioned in class), personal sites, e-mail- the list is almost endless.
This discussion reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend not too long ago. I always talk about school with my best friend, Megan, and welogs come up frequently. She is a Sophomore at the comminity college. After mentioning something about blogging, I remember her saying to me, "Just what are these blog things, I mean, Rosie O'Donnel apparently has one even!"
This question always baffles me- what is a blog? PAH!
Which brings me to my point: There is such a strong divide between people who are internet-saavy and those who are not.
With that said, there are people who do frequent the world wide web, but don't even know what a blog is.
So to us, blogging news(having the ability to post news instantly for billions of people, primarily) may seem like a news phenomenon, and in all reality it is- there's just one problem. When will the mass media look to blogs for the bulk of their news? Will this ever happen? Will any random Joe have the chance to be an anchorman just because all he heeds to do is read a teleprompter, since there are people just hashing through blogs for news to simply relay it on the television?
I really don't know- but I'm leaning towards probably not. Because part of the problem IS having to hash through blogs to find what is actually newsworthy, not to mention the time it would take to find proof the news is even true. There's just not enough time to go through all the blogs on the planet fast enough in hopes of finding a breaking story.
So we can say that blogging is a news phenomenon- and I agree it is, because I know at least one other person will probably read these words. Without blogs, these thoughts would only be little dittys in my head.
BUT: I think the main problem is, aside from the fact there are too many blogs to even begin to start with (unless the media would only browse the blogs of impportant public figures) is the trust issue. We don't know what to trust on the internet.
When speaking directly to people for investigating the news, we trust what people say to us. Mainly because libel and slander laws are public knowledge and the public knows how to conduct themselves in any type of interwiew properly(at least I'd like to think so); it's all morals.
If we simply took things from blogs and slapped them on the television or in a news publication, the court system would be blocked up with libel and slander cases, I'm sure.
Then on the other hand perhaps the knowledge that anything from any blog could be taken for news would force people to use proper 'netiquette', and the same standards they use when in an interview.
I'm not sure I have any strong concluding points. It's almost 2 AM and I just sat down, and started typing away.
I feel the blogging enthusiasm coming back. =)
Well, I'm glad you feel that way, Evan. I do think blogs have the potential to be the next big thing as well...I just wonder if we're too old fashioned to notice it. Old fashioned in the sense that the majority still relys on(and trusts) television or print media. Granted, I know people may check online news sites like CNN.com, but we know we can trust these sites, so that's not particularly an issue.
I agree with you 100% that blogs can do double duty. The internet provides a way for 'we the people' to speak, and be heard. We may unintentionally drop a news tip while ranting about our daily encounters- anything is possible on the WWW.
Even if this tip doesn't go national, and only reaches so far as, let's say, a student paper, the internet is still making an impact on people's lives. It doesn't always have to be large scale, because those small incidents add up.
It still blows my mind there are people our age who don't know what blogs are. =)
Oh, and I feel the internet is the perfect combination of anarchy and democracy, if such an ideal exists.
Thanks for the thoughts- and once again, great presentation!
That is the hard thing about relying on internet publication for--what I'll call for convenience--the non-internet publications.
The glorious thing about the internet medium is that, once something is published, it is stored in a database or hard-disk. That means it is easy to change any errors before any mass number of people catch them.
Once you publish a paper, that's it. There is no going back. That's why you see all the lovely Setonian staff up till the most godless hours of the night making sure every little thing in the paper is perfect. That's just the dynamic of media. Some media are better for some things and other media are better for other things.
To respond to your ponderings, I feel each medium has its intrinsic values. Obviously newspapers are good for in-depth and accurate reporting, TV and radio are good for making the personal connection (why we should care), while blogs have the capacity for doing both jobs.
The web is a big macrocosmic community. People tend to think of it as an anarchy, but I see it as a democracy. Each person has the ability to assess or denounce another site's credibility.
Wikis are a great example of this. No one can know everything, but everyone can know something. And this dynamic of producing and evaluating has the potential to be the next big thing.