real vs. fake news

Since this class started I've been thinking about the pros and cons of digital journalism. While I've focused mostly on the pros in my blogs I was thinking about the not so positive side and I thought I'd share my thoughts. The first thing I want to discuss is something I started thinking about in my Journ. 305 class. We discussed one day that the trouble with opinion pieces is that wrong information can get out there. I thought this was especially true with digital journalism where there are citizen journalists. People can take everything they read to heart. So if a blog or article states the wrong news then people believe what is being written even if its false or bias. With a newspaper the facts are checked and stories are monitored to prevent false information. The internet doesn't allow for that and people will find the wrong information out there and believe it.

Then I got to thinking about the stolen phone story we read. While that girl did something wrong her privacy was totally violated. A newspaper wouldn't be able to print stuff like her myspace page or home address. Especially since it would cause people to be able to harrass her. But on the internet, journalists don't have to stick to the ethic guidelines a paper would have.

Anyways just wanted to share my thoughts on the subject.

response

i was reading over other classmates blogs and i came across one that made me think and probably many other people too. Glenn discussed the idea that people like to collect newspaper clippings to remember an event and to keep as a keepsake. When Obama was elected president my brother bought 10 copies of the paper. The same went for when my sister had a baby. My parents bought a couple papers and still have the announcement of their grandson's birth. This is a glitch in the digital system. I still feel like when something important happens people are going to want an actual piece of evidence to remember the event. I don't know exactly what it means but it got me thinking about the route of digital and old form journalism. Are newspapers going to stick around just for this sole purpose or is the digital form going to find someway to cover people's needs for hard copy at certain times in their life.

news and information

I have to agree that with digital journalism news and information are becoming more meshed together. Take for an example the newspaper. With that we would just get the news or perhaps some little tidbit to help understand a story better. But information was left behind to cover the news story. Information was covered by something else. But with the internet journalism is changing. With news posted online there are various links to other information you can get on a subject they are discussing. News is not the alone product anymore of journalism. To be successful onine it seems journalists have to blend their stories with news and information.

citizen editor

I think a citizen editor is a good thing for a blog site. At first glance I thought a blog site and something like that didn't need an editor. But then I got to thinking about what Logan said about the citizen editor. Someone needs to be the one to start a topic to blog on and guide people through the different ideas being discussed. So I think a citizen editor is good for citizen journalism. Also the "editor" could help get the topics out there into the masses. In my opinion the citizen editor should be informal enough as to let people build the site freely with topics they want to discuss but also be formal enough to organize the site and blog topics.

thoughts on the lecture notes

i think the lecture notes was good at describing the journalism associated with the digital version. it mentions that the roles of the reader and writer have changed. Readers become citizen journalists. For the first time regular people are able to comment on news and write about news or their opinions on it. When reading the the phone story I saw the the companents of the digital news environment. This kind of digital journalism has more content then before. For example the idea of a missing cell phone led to other content being discussed like military police and racial questions. The story became unfiltered with news. Everything and manyhting became open to discussion.

readers becoming more than just readers

This week's reading, "It Takes a Village to Find a Phone," a great example of how digital journalism has readers become more than just readers. Their involvement in the story doesn't just stop the second they stop reading the post. The readers became activists, detectives, commentors, and participants to the story. They helped shape the ending of the story by the work they did.

While there were various reasons why they became so affected by the story that they had to participate in some way, the reason they were able to do that was from the digital format of the story. I got to thinking about what would have happened had it simply been a newspaper story. A reader may have been just as affected by it as on the internet. But the difference is that the most the reader would have probably done is write to the editor or Evan. Or perhaps discuss is with a friend, co-worker, or family member. But I think the interest would die down after that.

But with the system Evan set up people were able to fuel the fire. Discussion boards brought thousands and more people together instead of just a handful. They fueled each other with their online discussions and ability to track down new information through the internet. The ability to email the story to others helped others who had the ability to help the cause get involved. The internet gave people the freedom to post things they would not have probably written in to a newspaper about. They wouldn't tried to post pics off of Sasha's myspace or get into so many other related topics like the military or police duty.

Like mentioned in the reading, Evan created an army through his website. I don't believe it would have gone the same route had it just been in a newspaper.

Ann Arbor News

My opinion is that annarbor.com is an example of the hybrid form that Prof. Tracy wrote about. It has elements that use the internet technologies to improve the news given. It isn't just the paper version reproduced online. Something that stuck out for me was the other links given in a particular story. For example the article covered the Michigan vs Eastern game had some many other links inside the article. I could watch videos, chat about it, find other stories related to the game, get stuff on the big ten, etc. The article gave me much more options to find out more about the game. This struck me as a key point in the hybrid model mentioned in the reading. The articles on this site connect people to more information by using links to various topics and media forms.
Other things that I connected to the hybrid form was the way the reader could interact by leaving comments and live chatting. Also the site was constantly being updated around the clock. The article mentioned above was posted 5 hours ago an I even noticed another story posted at 3 am.
For these reasons I think annarbor.com was a good example of the hybrid form.