Yesterday I went to a lecture about the future of journalism. As it turns out journalism will most likely be around in years to come, it may be a little different but it will still be here. I went to see the Editor of Fortune Magazine Alan Sloan yesterday speak about the future of journalism, and he thinks that it will always be around because people will always need information.
Let’s face it, most people like to read short articles that get to the point quickly. I should know because I am definitely one of those people. If journalism didn’t exist, who would condense those long drawn out speeches and huge spreadsheets full of confusing numbers. I couldn’t have agreed more with Mr. Sloan more when he said that journalism is gathering information about the world, distilling it, and then getting it out to the people. I can’t imagine a job like that going away. Without journalism, the majority of people would never know what’s going on in the world. I also agreed when Mr. Sloan said that journalism shouldn’t be writing about what people want to hear. Unfortunately some “news” stations today tell people what they want to hear, which in reality only hurts the viewer. By hearing what they want to hear, people get a distorted view of the world, which I think makes the viewers easier to control. But that’s a whole other topic that I’m not going to get into.
I think that journalism should be exactly what Mr. Sloan said it should be; which is to tell people about topics or people they don’t know and let them read about them. I also think that journalist have a lot of power over people. I’m sure the majority of people out there believe a lot of what journalists tell them without questioning anything, which is unfortunate. I guess what I’m trying to say is that people can be easily manipulated into believing or trusting in something they shouldn’t. It’s actually kind of eerie to know that people can have that much influence over other people.
As to the thoughts about journalism fading away, I don’t think ever will. Yes, newspapers might have their days numbered because my generation usually doesn’t read them that much. But as for the journalism field itself, I think it will always be around. It just may be a little different in years to come.
How different?
I honestly have no idea!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
Honestly, Who Cares!
With the race for president heating up, some of the candidates dirty little secrets are bound to come out. Whether the allegations are true or false, the presidential hopefuls are always looking for a way to get ahead. The most recent case involving John McCain is a perfect example. Mr. McCain supposedly had an affair with a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman.
Of course they both denied the relationship ever happened but don’t they all? Politicians pretty much make their living of being liars, and if they’re not lying then their bending the truth. Okay, so maybe the affair never happened, but Mr. McCain should know that he is a public figure and is held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
Not everyone thinks that McCain is guilty of infidelity. In a blog called Hoystory, the focus of the John McCain article was believed to be a little slanted. Apparently the writer of this article doesn’t agree with how the focus of the article was on the affair. The author of this blog said “If I started out a news article claiming that Keller had an “inappropriate relationship” with a goat and then talked about his journalistic lapses a la Greenhouse and when challenged insisted that readers pay attention only to the ethical claims — well, you’d rightly laugh your butt off and question my ethics. As you should.” (www.hoystory.com/?p=4821) Although he may be right in some part, the author can’t control what people are going to focus on. He/she may be able to lead a reader to what he/she wants the reader to focus on, but there is no guarantee that every reader person is going to focus on the same thing. I’m sure that every person that read that article did not solely focus on the part about an alleged affair.
In another blog about the McCain affair called McCains Bimbo Eruption?, the author Matt Welch seems to be sick of hearing about how politicians are treated as “saints” and that they can never do anything wrong. Welch asks the question “but what of the charges themselves? Those who really care about such things have known since at least 2000, and likely much earlier, that McCain does favors for campaign contributors, and has not always been the most faithful of husbands. I care not at all about the latter; while the former is one of many constant, low-level irritants people like me experience when reading yet another newspaper editorial about what a saint the guy is. I’m still surprised as to why people are so up in arms about politicians having affairs.” reason.com I’m not saying that infidelity is a good thing, but high ranking political figures have been doing this forever. I mean most of us with an ounce of common sense know that politicians are not the most honest people, otherwise they probably wouldn’t even be at the positions they are in now.
In a blog called Was McCain In Bed, Literally, With Lobbyists? Is he still?, I found a something a little different than the rest. Apparently the author of this blog knows that John McCain was having an affair with his current wife while he was married to his first. If that is true, then his credibility will pretty much be out the window. But then again, this was written in a blog, so the author’s credibility is questionable. When talking about John McCain, the author wrote “John McCain, a once respected U. S. Senator is again quickly losing popularity as his history of changing votes for lobbyist money, trips, and now apparently more continue to come out. Do we really want more of the same Washington Corruption? We didn't think so.” kcblueblog This person obviously has a bias against McCain, which doesn’t really give him/her much standing.
In a blog called Further Thoughts on the McCain Story by Dan Kennedy, the blogs looks at how the affair between McCain and Iseman shouldn’t be that big of a deal . He wrote that the New York Times simply wrote about speculation and did not write about McCain and the lobbyist actually being caught in the act. He wrote that If McCain and Iseman really did hop into bed with each other, that's their business, and the media ought to leave it alone.” medianation.blogspot.com/2008/02/further-thoughts-on-mccain-story.html) I couldn’t agree more. Honestly, how many times is the media going to dig up some irrelevant issue about some politicians past and then raise hell about it?
I looked at a blog called the Whistleblower Support, and there was a quote that pretty much summed up what I’m trying to say about this alleged affair. “Even if oneself or ones family members are not really doing anything wrong, if it appears on the surface there is some questionable action going on, it will be questioned. Most federal employees are drilled about even the appearance of doing something illegal or unethical being a problem, particularly in the case of maintaining security clearances. (http://whistleblowersupport.blogstream.com/v1/pid/292139.html) It never surprises me when a political figure is accused of an affair or anything else considered to be immoral. They should know by now that there are people out there who do nothing but try to dig up dirty on political figures. It’s time for the public figure of the world to wake up.
I think that if the New York Times ran this story back in November, it wouldn’t be the same story that it is today. Yeah, maybe someone would bring it up, but it wouldn’t have nearly the impact. When it comes to whether they were right or wrong about running the story, I honestly don’t know. When I first heard about it, I didn’t care. Besides I honestly don’t know why people are so surprised when controversy like this comes out. This is election time, and crap like this comes out all the time. So he may or may not have slept with another woman. That issue alone is irrelevant, at least to me it is. I honestly could care less what he does in his personal life, as long as it doesn’t affect his job or decision making.
Of course they both denied the relationship ever happened but don’t they all? Politicians pretty much make their living of being liars, and if they’re not lying then their bending the truth. Okay, so maybe the affair never happened, but Mr. McCain should know that he is a public figure and is held to a higher standard than the rest of us.
Not everyone thinks that McCain is guilty of infidelity. In a blog called Hoystory, the focus of the John McCain article was believed to be a little slanted. Apparently the writer of this article doesn’t agree with how the focus of the article was on the affair. The author of this blog said “If I started out a news article claiming that Keller had an “inappropriate relationship” with a goat and then talked about his journalistic lapses a la Greenhouse and when challenged insisted that readers pay attention only to the ethical claims — well, you’d rightly laugh your butt off and question my ethics. As you should.” (www.hoystory.com/?p=4821) Although he may be right in some part, the author can’t control what people are going to focus on. He/she may be able to lead a reader to what he/she wants the reader to focus on, but there is no guarantee that every reader person is going to focus on the same thing. I’m sure that every person that read that article did not solely focus on the part about an alleged affair.
In another blog about the McCain affair called McCains Bimbo Eruption?, the author Matt Welch seems to be sick of hearing about how politicians are treated as “saints” and that they can never do anything wrong. Welch asks the question “but what of the charges themselves? Those who really care about such things have known since at least 2000, and likely much earlier, that McCain does favors for campaign contributors, and has not always been the most faithful of husbands. I care not at all about the latter; while the former is one of many constant, low-level irritants people like me experience when reading yet another newspaper editorial about what a saint the guy is. I’m still surprised as to why people are so up in arms about politicians having affairs.” reason.com I’m not saying that infidelity is a good thing, but high ranking political figures have been doing this forever. I mean most of us with an ounce of common sense know that politicians are not the most honest people, otherwise they probably wouldn’t even be at the positions they are in now.
In a blog called Was McCain In Bed, Literally, With Lobbyists? Is he still?, I found a something a little different than the rest. Apparently the author of this blog knows that John McCain was having an affair with his current wife while he was married to his first. If that is true, then his credibility will pretty much be out the window. But then again, this was written in a blog, so the author’s credibility is questionable. When talking about John McCain, the author wrote “John McCain, a once respected U. S. Senator is again quickly losing popularity as his history of changing votes for lobbyist money, trips, and now apparently more continue to come out. Do we really want more of the same Washington Corruption? We didn't think so.” kcblueblog This person obviously has a bias against McCain, which doesn’t really give him/her much standing.
In a blog called Further Thoughts on the McCain Story by Dan Kennedy, the blogs looks at how the affair between McCain and Iseman shouldn’t be that big of a deal . He wrote that the New York Times simply wrote about speculation and did not write about McCain and the lobbyist actually being caught in the act. He wrote that If McCain and Iseman really did hop into bed with each other, that's their business, and the media ought to leave it alone.” medianation.blogspot.com/2008/02/further-thoughts-on-mccain-story.html) I couldn’t agree more. Honestly, how many times is the media going to dig up some irrelevant issue about some politicians past and then raise hell about it?
I looked at a blog called the Whistleblower Support, and there was a quote that pretty much summed up what I’m trying to say about this alleged affair. “Even if oneself or ones family members are not really doing anything wrong, if it appears on the surface there is some questionable action going on, it will be questioned. Most federal employees are drilled about even the appearance of doing something illegal or unethical being a problem, particularly in the case of maintaining security clearances. (http://whistleblowersupport.blogstream.com/v1/pid/292139.html) It never surprises me when a political figure is accused of an affair or anything else considered to be immoral. They should know by now that there are people out there who do nothing but try to dig up dirty on political figures. It’s time for the public figure of the world to wake up.
I think that if the New York Times ran this story back in November, it wouldn’t be the same story that it is today. Yeah, maybe someone would bring it up, but it wouldn’t have nearly the impact. When it comes to whether they were right or wrong about running the story, I honestly don’t know. When I first heard about it, I didn’t care. Besides I honestly don’t know why people are so surprised when controversy like this comes out. This is election time, and crap like this comes out all the time. So he may or may not have slept with another woman. That issue alone is irrelevant, at least to me it is. I honestly could care less what he does in his personal life, as long as it doesn’t affect his job or decision making.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Blog'N
I think that bloggers due have a huge effect on the ways that people view the news. With news stations losing their credibility to some viewers, blogs have been shown to be a successful alternative. In the Kline and Burnstein book “Blog,” it was written that during the 2004 presidential election, the ten most popular blogs had 28 million hits, which rivaled three 24/7 news stations. Now if blogs were not being taken seriously, how come so many people are looking at them? I think the reason for their rapid growth is due to people’s distrust of the media.
I think that blogs can present a different point of view on important issues. Now, that doesn’t mean that I completely agree with what I see in blogs, but it is refreshing to get a different point of view. It seems like the news stations are just full of shouting matches, when they should be more focused on solving issues.
I also strongly agree that blogs can give voices to the “voiceless.” Major media networks tend to put stories that they feel people show care about on their stations. Just because some producers think an issue is important, doesn’t mean that most people think it’s going to be important. Most of time the minority voices are hardly even heard, and if they are given any kind of air time it’s only for twenty seconds.
Blogging is changing the way that people receive their news. Which is why I wasn’t shocked to see that the percentage of people who read news papers has dropped by 26 percent since 1964. I also think that as time goes on, this percentage will drop even more. People in the generation after mine will grow up on reading blogs, which will contribute to the decline of the amount of newspapers being read.
Something that surprised me was the fact that blogs are also seen as having an effect on the “influencers” of society. Apparently if the 10 percent of influencers in society can be affected by a product, then the rest of society will follow. Since I’m probably going to go into advertising after college, this will apply to me. If I’m trying to get a product exposed to the public, then affecting the “influencers” of the target market will be one of my main goals. Apparently 74 percent of percent of Americans use the web for shopping and communicating. This is a dream come true for advertisers, because now they can cut cost on putting ads in newspapers by putting their ads on their website.
I don’t know where blogging will be in the future. It could continue to rapidly grow, slow down, or somehow merge with TV media. I honestly don’t where blogging will be, but I do think that it’s here to stay.
I think that blogs can present a different point of view on important issues. Now, that doesn’t mean that I completely agree with what I see in blogs, but it is refreshing to get a different point of view. It seems like the news stations are just full of shouting matches, when they should be more focused on solving issues.
I also strongly agree that blogs can give voices to the “voiceless.” Major media networks tend to put stories that they feel people show care about on their stations. Just because some producers think an issue is important, doesn’t mean that most people think it’s going to be important. Most of time the minority voices are hardly even heard, and if they are given any kind of air time it’s only for twenty seconds.
Blogging is changing the way that people receive their news. Which is why I wasn’t shocked to see that the percentage of people who read news papers has dropped by 26 percent since 1964. I also think that as time goes on, this percentage will drop even more. People in the generation after mine will grow up on reading blogs, which will contribute to the decline of the amount of newspapers being read.
Something that surprised me was the fact that blogs are also seen as having an effect on the “influencers” of society. Apparently if the 10 percent of influencers in society can be affected by a product, then the rest of society will follow. Since I’m probably going to go into advertising after college, this will apply to me. If I’m trying to get a product exposed to the public, then affecting the “influencers” of the target market will be one of my main goals. Apparently 74 percent of percent of Americans use the web for shopping and communicating. This is a dream come true for advertisers, because now they can cut cost on putting ads in newspapers by putting their ads on their website.
I don’t know where blogging will be in the future. It could continue to rapidly grow, slow down, or somehow merge with TV media. I honestly don’t where blogging will be, but I do think that it’s here to stay.
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