Response to Culture clash
It’s been two years since I was introduced to the concept of a blog. It’s been a year and a half since I set up one of my own, mostly so family and friends could keep up with me as I traveled from Georgia to Montana. And I’m still trying to get my mind around the whole concept.
This post, on my newer blog, is a response to one of the most insightful pieces of writing about blogs I have read yet, courtesy Dr. Brian Carroll of Berry College. Understand, I’m not a person who often reads the news. Nor am I a persys,on who spends an inordinate amount of time on the internet. Thus, I don’t know a whole lot about serious blogs, the people who frequent them and post on them, or the very real impact they are having on the definition of journalism.
In brief summary, printed newspapers have long been viewed as the most traditional place to read published works of “journalism”. But as a younger, more computer-savvy and instant-gratification-demanding generation seeks news, they turn from the tired mode of print journalism to a form of news they can interact with. Newspapers, however slowly, are recognizing the importance of reaching out to them and their potentially massive sources of revenue. Carroll reviews some of the ways traditional news companies have tried to reach out to that younger audience via blogs, and suggests that the web, the news companies and the younger readers can all coexist and keep each other strong in a symbiotic relationship.
I agree with what Carroll says, for the most part. Newspapers are doing a commendable job of finding ways to reach out to a younger audience. His statement that “Generation Y sees news coverage more as a discussion and less a lecture” most definitely rings true.
Yet I wonder – and I plan on bringing up this question during the discussion on digital journalism I’m leading in class on Friday – how my generation, which suddenly wants to turn its back on tradition and interact with the news, got this way. While I don’t consider myself a traditionalist at all, I don’t understand the sudden need to have news filtered, tailored to my own special interests, and given to me by some random stranger who can understand the simplistic open-source software that blogs are built on and knows how to type. Perhaps I have, because of my extensive work as a correspondent for traditional newspapers, come to trust traditional media more than many other people, who prefer to see where the stories they read come from and check up on the sources (a core feature of blogs). Or maybe I’m jaded on the new forms of interpersonal communication blogs afford, where anyone can leave a comment about a story and thus build up to a discussion, because it seems that every discussion board I’ve ever visited contained more worthless, reactionary and unintelligent content than stuff that was worth reading (on discussion boards with topics ranging from movies to sports to politics). For these reasons, I’m less inclined to personally take blogs seriously as a legitimate form of journalism and rather as a newfangled form of communication that has yet to develop itself into a useful news outlet for all of society.
My other issue with understanding blogs: Who on earth has the time to create some of these things? I have visited (through the bidding of my professor) well-known blogs written by such online luminaries as Josh Micah Marshall (who greased the skids for the deposition of Trent Lott from the U.S. Congress) and Jim Romenesko (who keeps a daily blog for the Poynter Institute). After trying to read through these works – and believe me, it was difficult – I have to wonder how this can be considered a form of journalism when it is clearly written with a specific agenda (not political per se, but with the bloggers special interests in, say, politics front and center). Also, in my opinion, journalism is ultimately a service and a true newspaper strives to serve all its readers. That, to me, is why such a high premium is placed on objectivity in news reporting. That objective attempt to provide news to readers seems to go out the window with every blog I’ve ever seen, and with it, goes any right blogs have to call themselves a 21st century bastion of journalism.
This post, on my newer blog, is a response to one of the most insightful pieces of writing about blogs I have read yet, courtesy Dr. Brian Carroll of Berry College. Understand, I’m not a person who often reads the news. Nor am I a persys,on who spends an inordinate amount of time on the internet. Thus, I don’t know a whole lot about serious blogs, the people who frequent them and post on them, or the very real impact they are having on the definition of journalism.
In brief summary, printed newspapers have long been viewed as the most traditional place to read published works of “journalism”. But as a younger, more computer-savvy and instant-gratification-demanding generation seeks news, they turn from the tired mode of print journalism to a form of news they can interact with. Newspapers, however slowly, are recognizing the importance of reaching out to them and their potentially massive sources of revenue. Carroll reviews some of the ways traditional news companies have tried to reach out to that younger audience via blogs, and suggests that the web, the news companies and the younger readers can all coexist and keep each other strong in a symbiotic relationship.
I agree with what Carroll says, for the most part. Newspapers are doing a commendable job of finding ways to reach out to a younger audience. His statement that “Generation Y sees news coverage more as a discussion and less a lecture” most definitely rings true.
Yet I wonder – and I plan on bringing up this question during the discussion on digital journalism I’m leading in class on Friday – how my generation, which suddenly wants to turn its back on tradition and interact with the news, got this way. While I don’t consider myself a traditionalist at all, I don’t understand the sudden need to have news filtered, tailored to my own special interests, and given to me by some random stranger who can understand the simplistic open-source software that blogs are built on and knows how to type. Perhaps I have, because of my extensive work as a correspondent for traditional newspapers, come to trust traditional media more than many other people, who prefer to see where the stories they read come from and check up on the sources (a core feature of blogs). Or maybe I’m jaded on the new forms of interpersonal communication blogs afford, where anyone can leave a comment about a story and thus build up to a discussion, because it seems that every discussion board I’ve ever visited contained more worthless, reactionary and unintelligent content than stuff that was worth reading (on discussion boards with topics ranging from movies to sports to politics). For these reasons, I’m less inclined to personally take blogs seriously as a legitimate form of journalism and rather as a newfangled form of communication that has yet to develop itself into a useful news outlet for all of society.
My other issue with understanding blogs: Who on earth has the time to create some of these things? I have visited (through the bidding of my professor) well-known blogs written by such online luminaries as Josh Micah Marshall (who greased the skids for the deposition of Trent Lott from the U.S. Congress) and Jim Romenesko (who keeps a daily blog for the Poynter Institute). After trying to read through these works – and believe me, it was difficult – I have to wonder how this can be considered a form of journalism when it is clearly written with a specific agenda (not political per se, but with the bloggers special interests in, say, politics front and center). Also, in my opinion, journalism is ultimately a service and a true newspaper strives to serve all its readers. That, to me, is why such a high premium is placed on objectivity in news reporting. That objective attempt to provide news to readers seems to go out the window with every blog I’ve ever seen, and with it, goes any right blogs have to call themselves a 21st century bastion of journalism.
posted by Jeremy and Ashley Wood at 10:40 PM
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