Jay Rosen Response

The video that Rosen presented in his article was very interesting. It actually showed what is happening when the public turns away from media and connect amongst themselves. It reminded me of what happens when viewers leave their living rooms and connect to the world through the internet or social media sites. From this example we see how the big media was left out, which is why it is imperative that big media joins the conversation as well through the internet and social media sites. If people are no longer going to the big media and sitting in their living rooms as much then big media has to find them and connect with them through the internet.

Rosen also gives his thoughts an advice on the relationship between journalists and viewers. One of the first thing he mentions is to refer to “viewers’ as users. It steps away from naming the people as tools journalists use them for and supports his motto of: “the way you imagine the users will determine how useful a journalist you will be.” Another important piece of advice was to remember, the users know more than you do. This I think is very important to know because at the end of the day whether they are amateur journalist or just bloggers they are the people, they are more connected to other people and have more opportunities to expand on what they already know than journalist do.

Lastly he also mentioned a quote from Alexis De Tocqueville, a Frenchman, who said, “newspapers make associations and associations make newspapers.” This to me is very true. Without newspapers there will be no association and without association, there will be no newspapers. The two go hand in hand and when in sync will create a moving collaboration. This collaboration is the reason for open conversation and the reason why people are able to connect and learn from another. Not only are the users learning but the media is learning as well and getting a better chance to understand the viewers in order to “ listen to demand and give people what they have no way to demand,” which is another one Rosen’s vital advice.

Response to Bret Schulte’s The Distribution Revolution

The Distribution Revolution article focuses on social networking and how its helping journalism and the increasing viewers and subscribers for newspapers and other news medias. When we think about social networks we think connecting with friends and old classmates and meeting new people in general. Overtime it has become bigger than just connecting with people, it has become a gateway for news itself. I don’t know how many times I’ve logged on to my Twitter or Facebook and was informed by someone’s status. Whether it was the NBA lockout ending, the Penn State Sandusky case or news of a famous person dying, most of the time it is these social network sites that give me the first heads up on something important that may be going on. From there I can go to actual news outlets such as Times, CNN, etc. and get the facts on the situation, but essential a social network is what gave me the tip to actually search for the news.

These days it has become even much more simpler because I no longer have to depend on my friends to keep me updated with news I might have missed, but I can actually subscribe to a news media’s Facebook page and get my news that way. Having that convenience is something all viewers benefit from. Not only does it help the viewers, but news media outlets have a chance to connect with their viewers and as Executive Director Bill Buzenberg said, “working hard to go where the audience is.” The media can actually connect with the audience where as before the audience had to go to the media because it was impossible to reach out to every single viewer. Now with social networking sites majority of the viewers are all in one place making it easier for news media sites to connect with them individually and giving everyone a chance to join the conversation.

This again goes to show how media is changing and evolving. In addition to gaining popularity on these social media sites, media outlets can also mingle with the audience and get feedback from their viewers by making them feel a part of the news. With trending topics on twitter or statuses and polls on Facebook, everyone can have an opinion and have people actually hear it outside of their living rooms.

Response to Clay Shirky

Reading Clay Shirky was a little refreshing because it showed a new perspective. He was able to express some of the negative effects new media may present for newspaper and broadcasting companies. As stated before, I support new media and having the interaction of journalist, amateurs and readers only makes the conversation more interesting and engaging.

Unfortunately like any new innovation, there will be some negative effects and new issues that may sprout from that innovation. Shirky’s argument of everyone being a media outlet and newspapers and broadcasting companies no longer having control or say over what’s news worthy does seem to be a problem. It is a very strong argument because we all in a sense have become news editors and determine in our opinion what topics deserve to get the spotlight and which aren’t news worthy. The problem is that not all professional news editors and amateur journalist and bloggers are on the same page as to what is news worthy and what is worth being brought to the public conversation table. This creates a conflict of news and consumers have to decide and judge what they want know and what ends up happening is they may miss an important news story that ends up being pushed out of the spotlight by a trivial news story such as a cat being saved from a tree.

It creates more trouble for consumers because now they have to spend more time searching for the news and sifting out the nonsense from the real news worthy stories. So in a sense even the consumer becomes an editor. This issue is just one of those issues that is really hard to solve. Journalist can’t control or sensor what stories amateurs and bloggers put out, but at the end of the day consumers know who the reliable and professional sources are so when it all boils down to it, the professionals will always have that credibility but there’s no getting rid of the amateurs and some of their nonsense stories.

Response to Jeff Jarvis’ “Power to the Public”

After reading Jeff Jarvis’ “Power to the Public” I realized that I can relate to the situation he examined where the public was able to use the internet as a way way to petition and get the attention of Bank of America and their business scamming tactics.

I, myself am a Bank of America customer and I was aware of the five dollar debit card charge to my account and I called to speak with them many times about where the charge was coming from and what I can do prevent it from happening. It took weeks before they resolved the issue and little did I know that there were individuals already fighting for the same cause on a larger scale by petitioning. Its remarkable how connected and powerful a group can build themselves through technology and the internet. The scamming tricks of these companies are unethical and indecent. We all are hard working people do not deserve to get ripped off by those we trust with our hard earned money. These billion dollar companies that have a chance to get bailed out by our government when in financial trouble have no right to take advantage of us who don’t have that bailout opportunity. When we’re in financial trouble the government doesn’t bail us out, we either file for bankruptcy of resort to other means to make it. It’s unfair for us banking customers to get robbed under the table, though its only five dollars, that amount can add up to larger amounts and hurt us financially.

I think what the petitioners did was very commendable and it will definitely teach these powerful companies that we’re stronger than we may seem when we’re united. Though we may be miles a part thankfully the internet will allow us to organize and unite to fight for a cause we all strongly believe in. It is a beautiful thing.

Seattle Times Multimedia Project (Critique)

The Seattle Times project tackles a subject rarely touched in the news media. The article discusses the effects of graffiti and tagging in many urban areas of the Seattle area and what is being done by officials to reduce this act of this crime.

What surprised me the most was the fact that almost a million dollars was being spent on the cleaning of graffiti in the streets and on private and public property. It is sad that this much money is being spent on something so ridiculous as this. The money used could be spent on education or other projects to improve the community rather than cleaning up after irresponsible individuals. Though some graffiti is a form of art to a certain extent it can quickly be turned into vandalism when offensive language and symbols are used or private property is used as their canvas to express the creativity.

I’m glad that something is being done about this issue, but I wish that much money was not being spent to clean up after inconsiderate and careless individuals who choose to vandalize property. I wish more was being done to catch them with the use of cameras on the areas where the most vandalism is done.

In addition to the piece the Seattle Times wrote, they also had bloggers in the Seattle area give their opinion on the issue and how they felt it was affecting their community. I think it is a really good way to get different points of views from residents who live in the area. It gives viewers outside of the community a better look to see how people who actually live in the affected community feel about the graffiti issue. It exemplifies the point Beckett made about new media becoming more interactive and allowing for open conversations among viewers, reporters and those in the community being reported on. I hope more news organization continue to do this online and even on air with TV stations.

Sound in the Story (Response)

For starters the Sound in Story piece really pulled the reader in with the panda story in the beginning. It was clever and a great attention getter. After the joke it looks deeper into the attention span of readers and surprisingly it is not our attention that is getting shorter, it is the fact that the information we have to go through in order to get to what we need is increasing more and more. So, instead of just getting to the point there is a lot of extras surrounding the real point, which can end up getting ignored with the extras.

Deeper into the article it talks more about audio and video and how to approach each story in order to really pull the reader by taking it from a different angle. With audio it emphasizes on the “don’t tell me, show me” rule which is a really good point. It is important to make your listener feel as though they are there with you getting the story. Giving the audio a feel of a conversation rather than an interview is what will grab the reader and keep their attention. It makes the audio a lot more personal and real.

Most importantly I’m glad the article pointed out the fact that a reporter or journalist must be interested in their story in order for others to get interested. Not being interested in your story and just reporting to get the job done will be easily conveyed in the quality of your story. The passion and dedication someone puts into a project will always be portrayed in the finished product so it’s crucial to love what you are doing with the story that way convincing others and drawing them in will only be that much easier.

J-Lab Response

The J-Lab article “How Smaller Gets Bigger” discusses the evolution of journalism and its survival as well, but it looks at from a different lens by examining it from a business perspective. Three topics it looks at and believes news agencies should start making changes in order to survive and avoid being replaced by new start ups are: identify the players and mind the gaps, incubate your competitors and initiate a different “ask.”

In identify the players and mind the gaps, the article suggest local news agencies to link up with other industries and create a partnership in order to fill in the gaps of news coverage. This is true because it would be difficult for one agencies to cover news in the entire community. There isn’t enough man power or time to do this so collaborating would be smart. But with the collaboration I think its important to have a strong communication system so news isn’t getting covered twice or and area is not getting enough coverage.

In the incubate your competitors, it talks about not only nurturing you agencies but those around you as well. One of the suggestions in this section is to turn empty local news place desks into co-working stations for community site founders to work alongside reporters and journalist. Income could be made if the spaces were rented but most importantly the local news agency is getting a a chance to personally connect with the community right in their offices. New ideas and stories to report in the community are brought to the table.

Lastly in the initiate a different “ask”, the main idea is to have the citizens become “media players” meaning, “media players who are charged with being good stewards of a robust local news and information landscape.” Basically it would be an open discussion or public meeting place where people in the community can meet up and talk about civic issues. It would open doors for new topics to be covered in the journalism which to me is a really good idea. Journalist would report on issues that people in the community can actually relate to and understand.

I think with all three factors in affect it would definitely revive local news and create a closer relationship between journalist and the community at large.

Response to “SuperMedia Saving Journalism…”—Charlie Beckett

Beckett’s piece about saving journalism was quite interesting. I agreed with a lot of his points and how journalism has to evolve and modernize itself in order to remain relevant in the eyes of the viewers. Obviously, journalism is not the same way it was forty or fifty years ago. Viewers want more essentially and the conventional ways of reporting news years ago. no longer makes the cut.

Beckett makes a very strong point, “good journalism has always been about networking”. He continues by giving Jeff Jarvis’, a blogger, definition of what networked journalism is, to sum it up he believes networked journalism to be about amateurs and professionals working together and crossing old boundaries in order to get the real story, share facts, develop new ideas and perspectives. I could not agree with this more. Journalism is no longer about having a person behind a desk or a microphone reporting what the news and what they saw. It has become an open discussion for everyone to take part in. The journalists’ perspective is not the only one being shared at this point, eye witness and residents of that area’s stories and accounts are also being portrayed in the news.  Most importantly Jarvis ends his definition by stating that “the more journalist act like citizens, the stronger journalism will be”. He  couldn’t be any more accurate in that statement.

Through the rest of the reading Beckett talks about some issues old journalism had and what new journalism has evolved to in order to fix that problem. For example, old news had deadlines, new news is 24/7; old media was unresponsive while new media is interactive; and old media had crude technology and new media’s technology has become infinite. All of these factors play a role in the continuing evolution of journalism and the news. The collaboration of citizens and journalist is the key to the survival of the news and with media and technology developing I don’t think it gets any better.

Foust’s Gathering and Editing Media (Response)

The Foust’s reading was very interesting, I think its a great how-to for amateur journalist or anyone interested in media study. It has very descriptive details on each type of media such as still images, camera footage and sound from audio devices. Each type of media has its own way of telling the journalist’s story but without any knowledge of how to use these different types of media and getting them to nicely collaborate for the story telling process can be very tricky.

The worst thing is viewing a journalist’s work and not getting the full effect of a story due to technical or media issues. For example if you are watching a video, the last thing you want to see is the camera moving too much or not having things focused when they should. As for pictures, no one wants a blurry image. Lastly, for audio, readers want clear audio with a good sound quality. All of these factors must be perfected to the tea, if not your reader will be too distracted trying to overlook the journalist’s media errors rather than focusing on the piece and the story being told.

I, myself can use a lot of the information the chapter has to offer. After reading this, you won’t see a camera as just “a camera”, because now you know the different parts of the camera and how each part contributes to the function of a camera. I would highly recommend reading this chapter for newbies. I know for sure it will help me with the media I plan to use for my project.

Love and Pain in Swaziland (Response)

Before viewing this slideshow, I did not know what to expect. The first image was of a woman in a beautiful wedding dress leaving her family to join her husband to be and his family. Then I saw the title and thought her leaving was the pain. I was wrong. As I went deeper into the slideshow, I found out that the Pain was the devastating epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland. We saw pictures of young girls most around the age of 20, we saw pictures of mothers most around the age of 20 and we saw the hurt and pain they possessed due to this deadly disease and what it is doing to them and their family considering most of them lost their newborn children to the disease.

The one picture that stayed with me through out the entire slide show was the second photo of a woman suffering from HIV, TB and terminal cervical cancer. She was photoed laying in bed with her hands out calling out in prayer. In this image we see a woman suffering not only with one illness, but three. We see a little bit of her personality and see that she does not give up, she still has hope which is why she is praying. As a viewer we no longer see her as the woman dying from three illnesses. We see her as the woman dying from three illness but still has hope for survival. The photo is not only moving, but it is also inspiring in many ways.

The picture relates to class because it shows how an image can not only give a viewer an image to look at and make sense of, but having a photo with a person and allowing their personality to exude in such a way is remarkable. It is one thing to have an image of a person but the picture become much more powerful and interesting, when you are able to capture their personality and see the human aspect of that person through a still image.