Just plain, old-fashioned good writing

It's been recently brought up in one of my journalism classes that journalism today is "crap."

Whoa, back up, someone in a journalism class said journalism is "crap"?

Yes, it was my professor to be exact.

Now, let me clarify. He was not necessarily saying all journalism is bad, he was just making a statement to clarify that people going into the journalism profession need to making their writing more "reader-centered."

OK, so what does "reader-centered" mean?

In short, making journalism more reader-centered would be getting rid of all the clichés, keeping all the same style rules but making the stories new for the reader. I mean, how many times have we all been reading a newspaper in say, October, and come across a story about pumpkin carving? It's tired. Yes, people like to carve pumpkins in the fall months, but let's mix it up -- take it to the next level. We don't need to necessarily avoid those kinds of stories, especially since that's what a lot of people like to read about, and the readers are why we're all here in the first place.

There seems to be another problem plaguing journalism today -- the pseudo smart guy. We've all read stories written by these people. They contain hundreds of unnecessary descriptions and details and try to use "big words" to make us believe that they know what they are talking about. A journalist whose name escapes me at the moment said it best when he said that we are always trying to "muddy the waters hoping that someone will mistake us for deep." This isn't what readers want -- to be reading in circles until they get to the end and have no idea what they just read. No, we need to be confident in what we say and how we say it, and trust that people will care enough about what we're saying to read about it.

What we need is to get back to the basics, back to just plain old good writing.

Stolen Sidekick Sob Story

For those of you who have never heard of this story, I'll explain briefly (story can also be found here).

Basically, a woman named Ivanna lost her Sidekick in a NYC taxi cab, then recruited her friend Evan to help her get it back. Evan, in turn, created a media uproar of epic proportions about the lost cell phone, which was recovered by a 16-year-old girl named Sasha. Sasha refused to return the phone and even resorted to threatening Evan if he tried to get it back. Eventually, Sasha arrested for theft and the Sidekick was returned to its rightful owner, Ivanna.

So, if your head's done spinning, let's get back to right now. How did Evan manage to garner such an enormous amount of support for the return of his friend's overly priced cell phone? Well, first of all, who doesn't like to root for the good guy against the bad guy? But more than that, Evan was able to use technology to his advantage. Over a course of ten days, he posted many, many updates to his webpage, keeping his followers in the know of his ongoing quest for Ivanna's phone. It was easy for people to get involved with this because they were constantly being updated; They didn't have to wait around for more info till they lost interest. Also, these media outlets are more interactive, so people are allowed to post comments and talk to one another, making them feel that they are all on the same "team."

Truthfully, I don't think what Evan did was very ethical. He got millions of people against this one teenage girl, who clearly did not have the same means to fight back. Now, I'm not saying that I agree with stealing, and personally, I would have returned the phone to Ivanna, however, the cell phone provider was able to transfer all of the information from Ivanna's old phone to her new one, so why push the issue? Sasha was definitely not given a fair fight in this one, and I would almost go as far as to say that Evan took advantage of that.

Oh well -- you win some, you lose some. Better luck with your next stolen phone, Sasha.

The future of newspapers

After reading the article by Dr. Tracy and navigating through AnnArbor.com , it is clear that the site, aimed at providing info for people living in and around the Ann Arbor community, is a pretty good example of a hybrid form of news. What stood out the most was the "concept of the newspaper as the community's electronic publishing hub." AnnArbor.com is geared toward a specific community and is set up in a way that looks like blog posts rather than a newspaper, which, although I personally do not prefer as informal of a look, makes the site more accessible and reader-friendly. The News Herald, a newspaper covering the Downriver community, is, in my opinion, a better example of a hybrid source of news. It is a little more organized and has many more graphics.

What's most exciting about online news sources is the ability to contain links within the stories. Without having to go far in-depth, a reporter is able to simply place a link in there story and allow the reader to delve deeper into the topic if they choose. AnnArbor.com does do a great job of placing links within their stories. I was able to get a lot more information out of their stories than I would have been able to had it been in print. Overall, AnnArbor.com does a great job of providing reader-friendly news to the community it's covering and is a good example of the future of newspapers.

Talk about "Heartless"

I can't help but put my feelings out there, along with everyone else's, about the incident at the VMAs on Suday. When one of my coworkers told me one day that he read an interview with Kanye West, and that when asked "What is your biggest regret in life?", Kanye responded with "...not being able to see myself perform live", I wasn't too surprised; I've always really known that Kanye West was arrogant. However, his antics on Sunday just took him to a new level. I mean, what gives you the right to humiliate a young girl like that in front of millions of people. I could only imagine the lashing Kanye would give someone if they even dared to take a moment like that away from him. I just found the whole really sad and classless. Kanye, what you need is a very large piece of humble pie.

New in town...

So, being new to the whole world of blogging, I guess I'll just keep it simple for my first entry. I'm really not sure on how to go about doing this considering I never really kept a journal or diary of any kind my whole life... that's what these things are all about right? A means for us to post our thoughts, opinions, rants, ramblings and musings - only this time it's public. This time we're hoping someone will be interested enough to care about what we have to say as opposed to hiding our diary under our bed or in our sock drawer. So here it is - the world according to me...