Old School vs New School

by Peter Merchlewitz

I know that there are people afraid of change. Some people believe that the old ways are best. Or in the words of one of my favorite musicals: "Tradition!". Dave Lee's jBlog reports the feelings of Middle East reporter Robert Fisk, who believes that the new age of internet blogging is crippling the quality of news writing. "To hell with the web. It's got no responsibility." said Fisk after being challenged about a quote whom the caller stated that he "...read it on the Internet."

Lee comes to the defense of blogging by reminding journalists what it is that we try to accomplish: to inform, educate, and and apply a sense of public voice. He even goes a step further, talking about an image shown in one of Fisk's articles, one of a man holding his dead daughter whose bones were protruding from her legs. However, due to traditional news reporting mediums, part of the picture was cropped, cutting the daughter off just below the bone, thus changing the caption of the photo "A man carries his wounded daughter."', ergo, completely changes the initial impact that the image presents.

Had Fisk actually given this new fangled thing called blogging a try, he might have realized that he would have been able to post the entire image, instead of just most of it. But not only that, blogs are becoming more and more popular source of news information, when compared to ABC's figures of people who read the news paper.

Some people say that without tradition, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on a roof. One of these days, that fiddler might fall and break his neck. And when that day occurs, make a picture, and make sure you post it on your blog.