There's nothing fun about playing God when you are the people down below. They call this citizen journalism, but if we take a look at it, what is so great about citizens? Often all we get is opinions. Along with family pictures, videos, and how to manuals.
There is supposed to be an army of people that will save and change journalism. Yet it's hardly something that needs to be saved. It is true that journalism is changing into a medium of visually active praticipation. It needs to be protected from citizens and other outside interests that want to get inside us.
Blogs are opinion. They are a rumor monger. There is no shame and no one to hold them accountable. They do not have a seperate section on the internet as columnists and op-ed writers have in a gazette. They have no protection from others that There is no editor or legal department that will scream at them for having to print a retraction on page one. There is no teacher they might have had to tell them that lying does get in the way of a good story. That it's called Libel. There is no one to fire them when they gleefully delete or attack dissenting opinions. In a newspaper we publish them as letters to the editor without response. We don't think are readers are stupid enough to need
Everything is interfaced. Newspapers and good journalism are being reduced to links. They are parasitic. They are also humbling, and should force journalists to reconsider their practices. Blogs never say if they are paid to blog or not about their work.
People still trust blogs and the internet. No great disillusionment has happened
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet," is a warning reserved for conspiracy theorists shoddy home pages. Not for news blogs like gawker report, or tech report blogs like life hacker. It's never acknowledged that they are being fed information, or that they are recipients of company kickbacks, easily influenced by lobbyists, campaigns and corporate sponsors. Everything is as they want it to be, not as it is.
There is supposed to be an army of people that will save and change journalism. Yet it's hardly something that needs to be saved. It is true that journalism is changing into a medium of visually active praticipation. It needs to be protected from citizens and other outside interests that want to get inside us.
Blogs are opinion. They are a rumor monger. There is no shame and no one to hold them accountable. They do not have a seperate section on the internet as columnists and op-ed writers have in a gazette. They have no protection from others that There is no editor or legal department that will scream at them for having to print a retraction on page one. There is no teacher they might have had to tell them that lying does get in the way of a good story. That it's called Libel. There is no one to fire them when they gleefully delete or attack dissenting opinions. In a newspaper we publish them as letters to the editor without response. We don't think are readers are stupid enough to need
Everything is interfaced. Newspapers and good journalism are being reduced to links. They are parasitic. They are also humbling, and should force journalists to reconsider their practices. Blogs never say if they are paid to blog or not about their work.
People still trust blogs and the internet. No great disillusionment has happened
"Don't believe everything you read on the internet," is a warning reserved for conspiracy theorists shoddy home pages. Not for news blogs like gawker report, or tech report blogs like life hacker. It's never acknowledged that they are being fed information, or that they are recipients of company kickbacks, easily influenced by lobbyists, campaigns and corporate sponsors. Everything is as they want it to be, not as it is.
But then again this is all opinion backed up with truth. I'm no different than those I am deriding right now. The sole dividing lines are my knowlegde of journalism and my foresight. Give it time and blogs to shall fall.
Five reviews:Huffington Post:
This is a blog that bills itself as the internet newspaper. In the political section the news consists of attacks on other news agencies that provide Huffington with much of its content. There was no actual origional news content. All was either pilfered or opinion or twitter links to other websites. Spent more time deriding other news sources than reporting actual news.
Universal Hub:
This is a blog that reports Boston news outside the Boston newspapers. It is comprised of information directly from bloggers in Boston,. It is fairly unbiased, if a little sarcastic at times. I was impressed by the edition of a local sports sections called Red Sox and White Pinstripes. The news was good, if a little too arts and entertainment section at times, but over all it meets the criteria of a good localized web news source.
Grade B+ : Covers Boston On A Homegrown Beantown Beat.
Salon:
This online arts and culture magazine that has grown into an everything publication. However breaking news is not something they do. The broadsheet is not a news one but a blog described in the word edgy designed to look like a chick lit beach book cover. Named for the gathering places of renaissance men and women, it lives up to that. It's a place at the emergence of something new. It was also the beginning of the online periodical. It doesn't have any mutually exclusive contract with anyone wire service. In fact, it could be called its decline. They give great content from vlogged movie reviews to an interactive campaign 2008
Grade: A- : Nearly Perfect, Perhaps the Future of Multi-media publications.
Slate Online:
One of the first and still the best. This is the last and highest grade I will give. This is the news with humor and intelligent commentary. They do break news, but not as much as other major outlets. It has origional articles on topics that a newspaper with recent staff shortages might not have time to cover. They also have a good selection of newspaper standards including an animated Dear Prudence advice column. All they are missing is the classifieds. They also have something that no one else has. They have nationally syndicated radio shows as part of their collection. Outside of the newspaper or other website, these would be hard to indivually find. They are up to the minuet and all on relevant days news. The best I can say is bravo. I hope to work for them some day.
Grade: A+ : The Best An Internet Publication Can Be!
The Root:
This is a specialized newspaper. Specialized in that it has a target audience, like the Village Voice is only for the trendy New York neighborhood hipsters or how El Dario is only for Spanish people. It's for the black majority of the nation, offering a more focused but really not much different view. I was going to review nerve.com, but it was just sex, sex, sex, post-modern ironic news, photo blogs, and sex. The root had something that is hard to find on these sites, bipartisan coverage. In their politics section it was an open forum, where the news was reported and their writers gave the scoop on two different views, instead of one.
Grade B: All The News Thats Fit To Reprint
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