Kendra Rae’s Ramblings

Headlines of 2010:
Man hit by car.
Bellevue fire.

The future of “witty wordplay” headlines that traditionally attracted readers to certain articles may be grim, according to Clive Thompson’s article “How Google News Is Changing The Way Newspaper Headlines are Written.”

According to Thompson, newspapers and online media news sources are beginning to change their prose style in order to be more easily brought up by search engines. Headlines based on puns or wordplays have created “the problem of synonymity,” which occurs when a machine sorts an article by simply the words of the headline, not the intended meaning of the headline or the actual genre of the story.

While technology has always affected journalism, I think we have reached a point where technology is beginning to have a negative impact on journalism. If people begin to create headlines only for the machines, I believe their readers will suffer and there will be a significant decrease in the sites popularity. This is because I personally believe creative headlines should remain a determining factor in distinguishing an article that is worth your time to read (dependent on the medium and intended audience, of course).

Fortunately, some news sites have began searching for ways to save their inventive headlines. One solution presented and used by the BBC is create two different headlines for each article, one which attracts the readers and one that is literal for the machines.

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There are several steps bloggers can take in order to remain out of the courts. The most obvious precaution one should take to avoid being charged with making defamatory statements by simply telling the truth. Stefanac explained another precaution in “Dispatches from Blogistan” that I had never heard of before: insurance for bloggers.

“If you’re really worried about defamation lawsuits, there are liability insurance policies available, but many bloggers will find annual premiums averaging $3000 for a $1 million policy with a $5000 deductible to be a steep price,” Stefanac explained.

So is insurance necessary for bloggers? I decided that if I want to continue blogging after this class is finished, I should look further into the matter, so my quest for blogging insurance began.

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How individuals are supposed to gain credibility and distinguish themselves from the masses in the blogosphere has been a question I have personally battled with throughout the quarter. Fortunately, chapter seven of “Dispatches from Blogistan” has finally provided some form of an answer to my burning question.

“Better tools for filtering and gauging reputation are coming onboard every day,” Stefanac explained. “Individual bloggers are getting more proficient at presenting their cases in a manner that inspires confidence and action.”

By utilizing new technology and presenting arguments that are well formulated and balanced, bloggers are beginning to set themselves apart in their personal communities and the entire blogosphere.

Chapter seven also addressed another blogging issue I have expressed concerns about, the relationship between blogging and traditional journalism. In an interview with Jamais Cascio, an Internet activism veteran, Stefanac once again calmed my fears about traditional journalism surviving in the cyber world by stating.

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J. Patrick Coolican from the Las Vegas Sun explored the dangers of groupthink in his article, “The Perils of Political Narrative: One Reporter’s Story.” Coolican explores how groupthink has evolved and become a form of narrative, which has had both positive and negative impacts on the world of journalism from personal experience.

According to Coolican, groupthink as narrative is developed when: “A bunch of reporters and editors read on another’s dispatches, talk at events and on planes, and come to a rough consensus about where things stand and what’s important.”

I think this idea of groupthink is significant because it allows reporters to gather and ultimately print the same information so that no one is singled out for printing the wrong information; however, if all newspapers print the same thing, people will no longer have a need for a variety of news sources. Not only would most newspapers go out of business, but I believe our Democracy would be put at stake because there would be less diversified information available for people to interpret and formulate their own opinions.

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Brian Carroll uses Aristotle’s rhetorical concept of ethos in his article “Culture Clash: Journalism and the Communal Ethos of the Blogosphere,” in order to compare and contrast blogs and traditional print media. While traditional print media organization’s ethos is typically based on values such as accuracy, fairness, timeliness, precision, clarity and comprehensiveness; the ethos for news and information blogs is based more on values such as immediacy, transparency, interconnectivity, and proximity to the events.

Blogs have been perceived as a threat to traditional journalism, but times are changing and as newspaper readers are aging and dieing off, newer generations are looking to the internet for news coverage. This raises the important question of how will old media survive in this changing environment?

“It is suggested here that old media can better adapt and survive, even thrive, by opportunistically and selectively combining the schemas for ethos in and for traditional print media with those embodied by news and information blogs” Carroll stated. “The blog is but one digital medium or form in an evolving media ecosystem that increasingly enables and rewards participation by individuals, making traditional news media’s cognitive recognition of this communal ethos all the more important.”

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One of my favorite ice-breakers is the game Two Truths and a Lie. The goal is for the audience to distinguish from the speakers three statements which is the lie. This game helps individuals learn more about strangers, but I also think it can be used as an analytical tool to further one’s understanding of research, articles or other complex subjects.

I was very intrigued by the interview with Farai Chideya in chapter six of “Dispatches from Blogistan.” I thought Chideya made several bold statements, some of which I agreed were true, but some I thought were false. In the spirit of games, I thought it would be exciting to play a game of Two Truths and a Lie to further explore and analyze Chideya’s views on blogging.

Statement #1: Concerning journalistic ethics, Chideya stated: “It’s not that citizen journalists will be held to the same standards as “mainstream” journalists, but that coming up with a set of ethical rules you follow will make you better” (88).

Statement #2: “In five years, there will be less and less meaning to being ‘print,’ or ‘online,’ or ‘audio’ or ‘video.’ Anyone who can be multimedia will be multimedia” (88).

Statement #3: On traditional media and blogging, “I think in some cases it works well and, in some cases, news organizations aren’t ready for the higher level of opinion and critique that comes with the blogosphere” (88).

So which statements do I agree are truthful and which do I believe is false?

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The definition of a journalist and the journalistic privilege’s traditionally allotted to these individuals has come into question as blogs continue to gain not only popularity, but also credibility. Clay Shirky, the author of “Here Comes Everybody” sheds light on these very interesting conflicts in today’s media regulations and the impact they might have on the media’s future.

Shirky’s article was very insightful and I suggest that media professionals, students and the general public all take the time to read and reflect on his ideas which affect all of us in some way or another. I would like to focus on the personal impact Shirky’s article had on me and my view of my future career as a journalist.

I personally agree with the traditional definition of a journalist, which Shirky cited from the Oxford English Dictionary, that defines a journalist as: “a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television.” I worked hard to get into the University of Washington’s journalism program and now I feel that the level of prestige associate with my future degree will significantly decrease because the web now allows anyone to become a journalist or publisher.

“Out social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that characterized mass media,” Shirky explained. “The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals.”

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In elementary and middle school I kept a very detailed diary of my everyday proceedings. I wrote in my diary every night before going to bed, until my mother brought up a very private topic, that I had only recorded in my diary, at a family dinner. I was obviously very frustrated with my mom and the fact that she had been reading my personal diary, and I immediately stopped writing entries.

My past experience with diary intrusion has made me question why people keep online diaries. Why do people want to expose their inner thoughts, feelings and emotions and who wants to read information that might be uncomfortably personal or intrusive?

Fortunately, “Dispatches from Blogistan” by Suzanne Stefanac shed some light on my questions in the chapter titled “Blogs as Diaries.” In an interview with Bruce Sterling, an author, editor, activist and critic, Stefanac recorded that there is a need to completely redefine the word “privacy.”

“I have real problems with the word privacy. It meant something at one point,” Sterling stated. “But now, there are so many types of intrusions … there are just too many ways in which we violate one another” (55).

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Feng shui is a very common term in popular home design, but I was unaware until our reading assignment that there is a sense of feng shui involved with blogging.

Feng shui is defined as the art of creating a home environment that supports the life you wish to live. In a corporate environment, poor feng shui can result in miscommunication between managers and employees, conflicts among team members and lack of support for key initiatives.

The same conflicts can occur with an overcrowded and confusing blog site. One of the main purposes of a blog is to create a direct connection between authors and their audiences, and vise versa; however, too many colors, graphics, noises or shudders can cause vistors to exit a blog site rather than enjoy it.

I think Suzanne Stefanac, author of “Dispatches from Blogistan,” describes the essential concept of blog feng shui best when she states: “… you’ll do yourself and your visitors a favor if you hold to the old maxim, ‘Less is more’” (138).

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