Slashdot Mirror
Blogging for Dummies?
Guinnessy writes "Wired News reports that one of the most respected journalism schools in America is going to be teaching blogging as part of next semester's course. I find this quite interesting, especially considering the existing controversy over whether blogging, such as Slashdot, is real journalism or not. I still haven't made up my mind." "Blog" now takes the cake as the most ill-used word of 2002. Please draw distinctions between webpages with news, mindless link propagation, discussion sites, personal diaries or journals, etc.
Newspapers are believed do to credibility and for the most part unbiased reporting. Credibility can be established by reporting accurately, truthfully, and by keeping current with the events. Slashdot has a bit of sensationalism along with opinnions and sometimes unreliable sources that prevent me from believing everything I read on it. If a person can establish themselves as reliable source of information then I believe a blog can be true journalism.
Who in their right mind would call Slashdot a "blog"? Blogs to me have always been personal journals. Slashdot is more professional than personal, though it doesn't fit well into either category. Maybe it's just that I find /. useful, and journals self-centered and annoying. =P
Off-topic? =)
"I'll say it again for the logic-impaired." -- Larry Wall.
Be careful what you say in your online site. After all, we all know that you have to be paid in order for it to be considered REAL journalism with 1st ammendment protection...
/ 16 24241&mode=thread&tid=153
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/15
This may be a great thing. It somewhat officially broadens what an important institution considers journalism.
In my (albeit brief) investigations into the personal diary style of blog I seem to have found a correlation between being a female PD blogger and the ownership of a cat. Any suggestions why?
Where are the dog people?
What is the inverse of the Matrix?
Kuro5hin might rank as journalism. Not very good journalism in my opinion... Slashdot on the other hand is seldom anything more than a news cutting service with the occasional editorial comment. (more often than not the editiorial comment is more ignorant than the trolls...).
Forget the class and just take a basic class on spelling and grammer!
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
Freedom of the press is one of the most cherished freedoms we hold in this country (the US). It, hopefully, is the 4th branch of government that keeps all other branches in check through close scrutiny.
:-) are set up to print news as it comes with only the lightest of editing.
Lately, however, such scrutiny has become non-existent. Whether this is a result of the 9/11 attack and its subsequent Arab bashing or because powerful entities with ties to liberal political movements (Ted Turner) have bought out all the major news outlets is up in the air. If anything, it's probably a combination of both factors. These days we see nothing but carefully crafted 'news' and air-brushed reporters and anchors on the tube. The real news gets lost somewhere on the cutting room floor.
So where can we get our news now without the Big Brother Filter working overtime? The main source is the Web. Sites like the Drudge Report, NewsMax, and IndyMedia (not to mention our own new-anarchist Slashdot
So what comes out of this new media? Frankly, crap for the most part. However, hidden deep in the headlines are jewels of information and true news. Unfortunately these gems are surrounded by conspiracy theories and crackpot reporting that it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's the problem with the new media.
The benefit of the new media (or blogs as the article incorrectly calls it) is that discussion of the topics at hand can begin almost immediately. Slashdot.org is a great example because after each story the readers can chime in with their own comments and insights or provocations. In short, it is news by consensus. Not too shabby.
I have been pwned because my
"Please draw distinctions between webpages with news, mindless link propagation, discussion sites, personal diaries or journals, etc"
No. I won't. And you're somewhat screwed up to think a word's popular use, lending itself to a definition, should change simply because it's too broad. A word, part of language, can encompass many topics and things. That's why we use them.
The single word, blog, can mean all of those types of pages. If you want better distinctions, find another word, came up with another word and hope it becomes part of popular language (you've contributed before with a term, e.g. the slashdot effect), or use language (words, usage, formatting) to clarify the distinctions you seek.
A square is (or you're case, wait, that's too broad) a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square. Caucasion, human. Web pages, or slashdot.org.
Calling slashdot a blog, or calling it journalism.
A "blog" is an online diary. Just because it's a "journal", doesn't make it journalism, by the practical definition. Hopefully, this school is teaching the difference.
My first reaction is: "Great, just when I thought the trend of whining bohemian teenagers was on the decline, more fascinating online drivel about how the Offspring sold out". Rethinking it, though, maybe the internet will take more shape as a source of alternative media. Televised news is a joke, newspapers almost all suck (besides the Indypendant or the National Review, I can't think of any worth a read), the clearchannel or the radio, whatever it's called, is getting more silly by the day...maybe a large group of "bloggers" seeking out stories and drawing the lines between them will form a perfect source.
I mean, the WTO protests in Seattle a few years ago had TV/radio/Newspapers reporting protestors rioting, and cops using almost no force against them. Personal accounts contradicted this and soon after, video and photos turn up on the internet of cops firing rubber bullets into crowds of people sitting on the sidewalk, tear gas canisters flying and even one cop ripping someone's gas mask off to pepper-spray(?) him. Who would know, if not for the fact that individuals spread the word independantly, that quite a few innocent people had been lumped in with the couple of assholes that kept showing up on CNN?
You can't take an individual's opinion as fact, but the same could be said of major news outlets. Similarly, you can't expect those major news stations to fess up when some stories don't add up, or are mysteriously omitted. If enough people start reporting what they see, eventually we'll get a much larger idea of what is really going on around here.
There was a pretty good article about the "blogosphere" a week or two ago. Very long, and relatively interesting, especially if you are interested in blogs, journalism, news, and that sort of thing. If you have a blog, you might like it too. If you are interested, I've got interview questions sent off to John Hiler, the author of the blogosphere article. I think he'll be getting back to me in a few days. I'll have the interview posted on WebWord.com soon after that.
There was also another story making the rounds about a week ago about making a living from blogging. I was expecting a lot more from it, i.e., some real details on "how to do it", but it was still a reasonable article. It might give you some ideas. Mileage may vary.
Last link whore comments: If you haven't seen Blogdex or Daypop, you might want to check them out. Very nice tools to see what it hot in the world of weblogs.
How to Download YouTube Videos
"most respected journalism schools "
I dont know about you... but I dont have much respect for journalists - nor berkeley...
I find that journalists have about as much integrity as lawyers and politicians. I guess thats why those groups run the world... little cunning bastards that do anything for a buck.
First of all, Michael is right..."blog" has become extremely overused, much like "P2P." But that's besides the point.
Merely linking to news does not equal journalism. Slashdot isn't journalism. Kuro5hin isn't journalism. Yahoo's Full Coverage site isn't journalism. Hell, Fark isn't journalism. They are link farms. They find and post links to actual news stories across the world. While this makes for an easy-to-read digest of news and information, it does not mean the site becomes a seeming bastion of original journalism.
Real journalism, IMHO (speaking as one), is going out, researching a story, interviewing people, and putting together a concise unbiased story (keep your media bias arguments until the end of class kids). Journalism is not posting a link to a news story elsewhere, and then adding your own personal opinions or thoughts. While the Berkeley school is trying to avoid this, putting a "blog" label on it won't make any difference. Major news sites, like the New York Times and the Washington Post already post their news to the Internet in real time. Some even include "Comment on this story" links as well.
Take away the personal opinions and rambling links, and you don't have a so-called "blog." You have an online news site, just like the big boys. Calling it a "blog" doesn't give any more "hipness" or credibility.
I wish everyone would get over this stupid "BLOGS ARE THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM" crap. You know what? They aren't.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
How is [a weblog] different from an online journal?
Weblogs do not contain little graphics at the end of each entry telling you that the author is "feeling bummed."
This isn't exactly related but then again maybe it is....Is it marketing or journalism?
It can be tough to decide how to define something. A blog is a blog is a blog. The material posted by kids about their lives might mean nothing to you but everything to that kid and his/her peers. If you don't like it, move along. Call it a journal or call it something else. Call it a blog, or not. Fine.
On the other hand, there are some "industrial strength" blogs out there. At a minimum, this is going mainstream, for better or worse. For example, there are blogs written by folks that are employed by Macromedia. Examples...
Mike Chambers (Flash MX):
http://radio.weblogs.com/0106797/
Vernon Viehe (ColdFusion MX):
http://vvmx.blogspot.com/
Matt Brown (Dreamweaver MX):
http://radio.weblogs.com/0106884/
And then there a blogs by the professional folks at MSNBC:
Eric Alterman: Altercation
Michael Moran: World Agenda
Cosmic Log: Alan Boyle's Diary
Chris Matthews: Hardball
Jan Herman: The Juice
How to Download YouTube Videos
...and it's been there since the Seattle WTO protests. www.indymedia.org.
That a journalist's work has to first pass through the scrutiny of his peers and his editors is a key factor in assuring the quality of published information. Blogging might be journalism, but it's Rambo-style -- one man for himself, whatever he writes, gets published. When you're talking about something like the BBC, CNN, or the Wall Street Journal, letting reporters publish on-the-fly might give individuals too much control over what sort of information makes it to the public.
Now with the Internet growing as a major distribution point for news, perhaps the future will bring us a merger of 'traditional' journalism and web logs: real-time news that, while still going through the standard editing channels, is published as soon as it's put in. The idea of releasing news each day may fade away from the Internet entirely, leaving us with news sources that publish news as soon as it happens. It'd be one more (small) step towards a truly networked form of human civilization.
Re their integrity, sure--there are some bad apples in every bunch. However, one way journalism is like science is that journalists' output can be checked against the real world. They constantly check up on each other, not out of altruism of course--possibly the reverse, but as long as it works...
As for teaching them to blog or use computers in any way, I don't envy the teachers. Journalists, like lawyers, politicians, preachers, writers, and some/most teachers (the "word-oriented professions"), live and work in a conceptual world that is non-physical.
There seems to be a natural antipathy between word-oriented professionals and machinery. Most word-oriented professionals could, or imagine they could, do their job as well in a non-technical society as in ours. I think it derives from the ancient Greek division between philosophy and work.
This is only a theory. But if you've ever tried to provide tech support to a bunch of reporters you know it's about as easy as convincing cats to become amphibious.
My hunch, in fact, is that considering the various reviews, interviews, and articles, Slashdot's percentage of original content compares favorably with lots of so-called mass media outlets. In fact, it's got a big leg up on mass media insofar as one often finds the people mentioned in the stories, or people with a personal connection to the story, posting comments, giving readers a different perspective on the article. I'm not prone to hyperbole, so I won't call slashdot "visionary" or "groundbreaking" but I do call it "really cool" and, most definitely, "journalism".
Blogs, too, are journalism. Personal diaries may be the most trivial form of journalism, but it is, at least, reporting. It may not be up to the standards of Columbia, or conformant to the AP style guide, but I've read a lot of crap in "real" news outlets and a lot of informative, if non-traditional, reporting on blog sites. In any case, I'm leery of refusing to call blogs journalism, as it plays into the hands of those who would separate "journalists" from the rest of the public and confer upon them rights that are (IMO) properly invested in us all - particularly freedoms of speech and of the press.
Consider the case of Paul Trummel who has been jailed for refusing to take down articles on his website, on the grounds that he is "not really a journalist." Understand why I'm not so keen on drawing a line between "journalist" and blogger?
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
After all, is it a set of standards and proceedures for reporting information, or is it just the actual presenting of information that one discovered/uncovered/learned/etc.?
An editoral or opinion piece in many major newspapers are good examples, as some of them have the writers actually out covering some sort of story, whether it be government corruption or international tensions or what have you, but the only difference between the editorals and the articles is that the editorals have the author stating their own personal feelings about it, rather than "Just the Facts, Ma'am." Their opinionated pieces are basically the same as something the a guy posts on his website regarding something important to him.
Similarly, let's say I'm wondering about a topic, so I go out and ask around with some people connected to it, check what records I can find, do fact-checking, and then post my findings on my personal website, would that be journalism? I'm not a professional, and it's posted on a site that's not claiming to be a source of hard news, but all the same, if I followed the same proceedures that any other reporter does, what's the difference if it was read in a newspaper or on the web?
Very few people believe all the read on the 'Net, for good reason. Similarly, very few people believe all they see on TV, as well, also for good reason.
The whole concept of what "blogging" really is seems to a rather pointless debate. News can be reported in any format by any person, really -- the means doesn't make the difference. Teaching blog at a school just seems to me more or less showing students one way that a web site can be run, and not an exercise in some new "cutting-edge" journalism technique.
Matt
That's not necessarily a bad thing.
It doesn't take an in-depth analysis of the news story to make journalism. It only needs to be true, correct, and competently addressed even if it's little more than a footnote.
Not everything in a newspaper is a front-page story, you know? News companies have limited space and resources to create and publish those marvellously researched pieces you're so fond of. There are also columns, socials, and those collections of AP/REUTERS notes that you find almost as a margin to the "big news" and compose 90% of what's happening in the world.
"Online news sites" are similar to these last. They condense information as much as possible while trying to give a non-misleading picture of what it is about (and usually fail), so that interested readers can do their own research and find out more.
Blogs with active comment systems are a mix of these with "open-eds" and "letters to the editor".
But Blogs may also be more than just a collection of links. While Slashdot follows this pattern, it's mostly because that's what it does best and/or what the community values (witness the popularity, on the other hand, of Jon Katz).
Kuro5hin, for example, follows more closely the pattern of a magazine or publication. MLPs are similar to the link collections (or AP notes), while the rest of the site is often populated by articles where the links are secondary to the argumentative content... which is in some cases not entirely about the current emotional state of the poster. Original content that is not a substitute for group therapy is possible in a blog, after all.
The advantage of blogs is that they provide an immediate source for the reader to do their research, so they don't necessarily have to accept the incomplete, inevitably misleading piece of news they were given. Users can interact with each other and with the author exchanging sources of research, and even correcting intentional and unintentional errors in the article.
The disadvantage is that, being posted by amateurs, they degenerate into diaries with links... that is, a throughly unentertaining and unresearched "opininion column" on electronic media.
Communities formed around these throughly biased weblogs (witness Slashdot), and will react against the removal of that bias because it gives them "a sense of community". They enjoy the non-journalistic flavor of the blog, but that does not mean a journalistic endeavor cannot benefit from the blog format. Rather, it means it must resist the temptation of pandering to the public which is probably greater than in other formats because of the greater level of feedback.
A journalistic "blog" should not foster that bias and would probably be unable to provide any "sense of community" while being competent in the journalistic sense, but one or many biased communities could be "resident" in a journalistic blog, though, much in the same way Clans or Guilds are specific to some online games.
I agree with you, though. Blogs are not the future of journalism, nor should they be. Hyperlinks are the future of journalism and should be the present; Blogs are just one of the ways of getting that into the heads of stubborn journalists half a century too late.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
For those of us old enough to remember, the corp-blog phenomenon could turn into an amusing rerun of the mainstreaming of sixties hippie culture by seventies marketing weenies. Macromedia's phrase "the blog strategy" sort of tells it all. The most important thing is sincerity... if you can fake that you've got it made.
We're gonna need a new buzzword pretty soon that means "painfully lame yet expertly produced synthetic blog". I can't think of one at the moment, but then I don't even know what "leet" means.
Hey chicks and dudes, let's rap!
'Blog'. From 'Web-log'. The 'log' of which derives from shipping navigation. Sailors would throw a lump of wood - the 'log' - into the water and watch it float past to measure the ship's speed. This was written in a book every day, which became called 'the log'.
'Journal'. From the latin 'Diurnalis', meaning daily. A record kept daily, like a diary, which probably evolves from the same root - latin 'dies', meaning 'day'.
'Journalism': The collecting, writing, editing, and presenting of news or news articles in newspapers and magazines and in radio and television broadcasts.
It seems that somehow people putting their journals on the web via a web-log got all up themselves and decided they were 'journalists'. Errr no. Writing a journal does not make you a journalist these days.
The UCB course mentioned in the article looks more like it will teach on-line journalism, but they've buzzworded it with 'blogging' as a PR exercise. These guys know PR, you see.
Baz