... Is when your Web page finally looks exactly like you intend it to. I had forgotten how frustrating HTML can be. I left out one " ... And that was literally the end of it all. Paragraphs were missing, links were in the wrong place ... It was just a bad situation to be in. And the biggest headache of all is trying to go back and find that one tiny mistake.
Since most of you in the class are new to this HTML thing, I just want to say I feel your pain. When you first start, I know it's terrifying and upsetting. Even basic tags can seem hard to master, and doing something slightly more advanced, like links or tables (which, by the way, make pretty much every page look cleaner ... although I will admit I didn't take the time to put a table in mine because I wasn't even sure if I could remember how to get a page from a text document to the Web) seem impossible. But just keep trying. It comes easier as time passes, and although I'm not completely fluent in HTML, I consider it my second language :). Anyway, this isn't the end of my blog. It's only the beginning. You can continue the journey here.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Online News
I'm not sure where to start or what to say, but, after reading the chapters about online news, I suppose I can come up with a few thoughts. First off, I'm aware that journalism is heading into the online world and dying in the print world. And while that's exciting, it also scares me a bit. I decided I wanted to do journalism when I was in third grade; it was the 90s and the Internet was just becoming popular. Why did I decide I wanted to become a journalist? Because I like to write. Really, it's that simple. I had no interest in multimedia, interactivity or on-demand delivery (partly because I didn't know what any of those things were). When I got into the J-school, I was honestly pretty angry that I had to learn how to do so many things (videos, etc.) that didn't involve writing. It wasn't what I thought I had signed up for, but in reality, these skills are just as important as the traditional skills of knowing how to write, report and edit.
When thinking about what news is and what it's becoming, it makes sense that all of these skills would mesh together. Online news must appeal to a slightly different audience, one that expects news to be convenient. While at work this summer, I always kept CNN pulled up on my computer, but I could only look at it in short bursts. I needed headlines that immediately caught my attention, and I needed news that I could skim. When I felt like I was being watched, I needed to be able to pop in my earbuds, pull up a video at the top of a news story and listen to it as I wrote. And perhaps most importantly, I needed the headlines to change often. I worked 8 hours a day; if the headlines didn't change once an hour or so, I had read everything that sounded interesting before I even began working. That's what online news has to be, and honestly I find that few local newspapers for small towns have those qualities. I don't find out anything about what's going on in my hometown from the newspaper because it's not convenient and it's not up-to-date. When I want to know something, I go to Facebook. There I find information relevant to me, along with pictures and videos to keep me entertained, and it is constantly updated.
Now the question is, how do we make online news convenient for small-town newspapers? The easiest answer I can think of is that it has to be in a Facebook format. I have no idea what that looks like. All I know is that people need to be able to discuss their news online. They need it now, and they need recent and relevant stories. Multiple types of media need to be used, and (my favorite part) traditional journalism still needs to hold a place. A Facebook format may be part of the answer, but news needs to be more than that. I'm a reporter. I can't just throw aside those news values that I was taught. They have to find a place amid all this changing media. Integrating everything together is the key, but I can't yet say how to execute that plan.
When thinking about what news is and what it's becoming, it makes sense that all of these skills would mesh together. Online news must appeal to a slightly different audience, one that expects news to be convenient. While at work this summer, I always kept CNN pulled up on my computer, but I could only look at it in short bursts. I needed headlines that immediately caught my attention, and I needed news that I could skim. When I felt like I was being watched, I needed to be able to pop in my earbuds, pull up a video at the top of a news story and listen to it as I wrote. And perhaps most importantly, I needed the headlines to change often. I worked 8 hours a day; if the headlines didn't change once an hour or so, I had read everything that sounded interesting before I even began working. That's what online news has to be, and honestly I find that few local newspapers for small towns have those qualities. I don't find out anything about what's going on in my hometown from the newspaper because it's not convenient and it's not up-to-date. When I want to know something, I go to Facebook. There I find information relevant to me, along with pictures and videos to keep me entertained, and it is constantly updated.
Now the question is, how do we make online news convenient for small-town newspapers? The easiest answer I can think of is that it has to be in a Facebook format. I have no idea what that looks like. All I know is that people need to be able to discuss their news online. They need it now, and they need recent and relevant stories. Multiple types of media need to be used, and (my favorite part) traditional journalism still needs to hold a place. A Facebook format may be part of the answer, but news needs to be more than that. I'm a reporter. I can't just throw aside those news values that I was taught. They have to find a place amid all this changing media. Integrating everything together is the key, but I can't yet say how to execute that plan.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Beginning Thoughts
I'm just going to add a few thoughts quickly so that this blog isn't entirely empty. First off, I just want to say that I'm bringing things to the table that I didn't even realize were good things. For example, I'm from a small town. I looked us up on Wikipedia so that you could check it out. Honestly, I was really surprised that we had a page and even more surprised at how much better the place looks on the Web than it does in person. I noticed that most of the details about why it's a terrible place to live were left out.
I come into this class with a bias against small towns, but I do understand the problem at hand. When I go home, I rarely read the local paper, and when I do, it's only to laugh at how bad it is. I looked up the Web site of our paper just to see what we might be dealing with when we look at these other small communities. It's improved quite a bit, but I can honestly say I'm still never going to use it for my news. So how could it be improved? Well, I don't know. But I'm hoping that we'll be able to find solutions this semester.
I know that bringing "from a small town" to the table isn't much, but I can do a few other things. I know some HTML and can use Joomla technology, although since I don't know what we'll be doing this semester, I really can't say that either of those will be of any use. I hope that I am able to develop those skills as the semester progresses. I've also interned at a local paper, so I understand some of the challenges that these papers may face. (However, I worked on the sports desk and so I avoided a lot of the problems regular reporters face.)
Two things that I definitely don't understand are PR and advertising. I'm excited to be working with students who specialize in these areas, and I'm hoping that I can learn something from them as we go along.
Sometimes I can get a little wordy, so I apologize in advance for any posts that get out-of-hand.
One last note ... I have a personal blog too, and I recently switched URLs so I have few readers. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it here. It's under my same account, just a different URL. (I'm linking to this blog on my personal one too!)
I come into this class with a bias against small towns, but I do understand the problem at hand. When I go home, I rarely read the local paper, and when I do, it's only to laugh at how bad it is. I looked up the Web site of our paper just to see what we might be dealing with when we look at these other small communities. It's improved quite a bit, but I can honestly say I'm still never going to use it for my news. So how could it be improved? Well, I don't know. But I'm hoping that we'll be able to find solutions this semester.
I know that bringing "from a small town" to the table isn't much, but I can do a few other things. I know some HTML and can use Joomla technology, although since I don't know what we'll be doing this semester, I really can't say that either of those will be of any use. I hope that I am able to develop those skills as the semester progresses. I've also interned at a local paper, so I understand some of the challenges that these papers may face. (However, I worked on the sports desk and so I avoided a lot of the problems regular reporters face.)
Two things that I definitely don't understand are PR and advertising. I'm excited to be working with students who specialize in these areas, and I'm hoping that I can learn something from them as we go along.
Sometimes I can get a little wordy, so I apologize in advance for any posts that get out-of-hand.
One last note ... I have a personal blog too, and I recently switched URLs so I have few readers. If you'd like to check it out, you can find it here. It's under my same account, just a different URL. (I'm linking to this blog on my personal one too!)
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