Coping with Younger Generation Ignoring the News
Sunday, September 26, 2010

The latest in news-industry issues, as written by multimedia journalism and integrated marketing communication students at Simpson College.

Ethics. They're what we live by.


![]() |
| Entrepreneurial Journalism covers several platforms, all of which begin with technology. |
For two-and-a-half hours, many of the 550 million Facebook users experienced the "e-pocalypse" this past Thursday.
Two days ago, Facebook experienced an outage due to a glitch on Facebook's databases causing the site to be unavailable for a few hours.

Every journalist needs what is considered the top tool in some form.
There is a list of the top five tools for journalists, and the voice recorder is number one.
They are crucial to a journalist's writing.
So many mistakes can be made if the journalist doesn't have this tool.
When writing an article that involves interviewing, which I've found that most do, having some form of voice recorder is an absolute necessity.
If a journalist doesn't happen to have some type of recording device on them, they may be in a critical condition later on when trying to write the story.
The reason for the voice recorder is to make interviewing and jotting notes simpler. If something is missed it may be listened to later on to see what was said.
Another reason voice recorders are important is that when quoting somebody, a journalist must use exactly what they said. If the journalist merely jots notes instead of writing word for word then there will be no quotes to use.
Without quotes the article or story will be bland. The public will not want to read anything they can't relate to.
To avoid these mishaps, get some form of voice recorder.
Now, get out there and start interviewing.

Media consumption has skyrocketed over the past two years.
A study done by Ipsos OTX of 7,000 online consumers ages 13-74 shows that people now spend over half of every day consuming media. New technology like smart phones and high tech laptops has fueled this increase in consumption.
The big form of media that has been fueled by new technology is social media. The study showed that 77 percent of the people who participated in the study were members of one or more social Media site.
So, what is it big deal with social media?
Bruce Friend, president of Ipsos OTX Media CT said in an interview with TheWrap, "Communicating is now entertaining, and entertainment is communication."
Social media has broken its boundaries with the help of new media to take on the role of communication and entertainment combined.
Media consumers want to be informed, they want to be in touch and they want to be entertained. Social media has all of these aspects. Social media sites are constantly changing and revamping in order to attract media consumers who have these demands.
Thanks to new technology, social media sites are also being forced into making products available through every different type of smart phone or other media device on the current market.
Are media consumers demanding too much out of their media outlets?
Is entertainment becoming more important than communication, or can they coexist equally through social media?
Only time, and an eye on new technology, will answer that.

Aol's hyper local project called Patch says that it will be the largest employer of upcoming journalists. Patch U is teaming up with several universities and giving journalism students the opportunity for internships. New journalists are going to define the media and how we use it and Patch is committed to preparing them for this.
Schools such as Stanford and New York University's journalism programs are taking part in this opportunity. They will have the change to write leads, cover stories, be at events, shoot photo and video, and the editing process. This is a great experience for the students to get a taste of the life as a journalist.
However, with the world of journalism heading down hill this opportunity may not be as good as it would have been ten years ago. Journalism students may be getting the experience but then are finding it hard to get a job after college. They end up putting their stories out there for free Patch is avoiding exploiting students by limiting them to a two month unpaid internship.
http://http://www.editorsweblog.org/web_20/2010/09/patchu_offers_internships_to_journalism.php
Recently, I have been dabbling in the idea of starting my own blog outside of Beginning Newswriting and Reporting class. However, a few questions arise:
What in the world am I supposed to write about? Who would want to read what I have to say? Do I have the qualifications to write a “real” blog? And, what about my time? Do I have enough?
Luckily for my fellow, future bloggers, I have the answers.
According to Nathan T. Wright of Lava Row, you can write about anything at all. Wright presented "The Brand of You" at Simpson College tonight, in which he talked about making yourself a marketable brand. One area of branding Wright encouraged was blogging.
This means that if you're interested in writing a blog about sex and relationships like Glamour Magazine's blogger Erin Meanley- whose most recent article was entitled “Can We Please Discuss the Hotness That Was Last Night’s Dancing with the Stars?” -you can!
There are all types of readers around the world, so you shouldn’t ever worry about people not being interested in your blog.
And remember, anyone can write a blog. You just need to have the drive.

Don’t know how to get started? Here are some sites to help you out:
- Tumblr
- And of course Blogger
Overall, they follow the same general set-up. You just have to find the one that is right for you.
As Wright said, “There is no barrier to entry.” You just need to have the will and the time (at least once a week) to get your blog going.



Social medias as a social network are transitioning to an intriguing marketing tool for marketers.

In recent years, more and more print articles have become extinct and available only online. I don't know whether to be sorry, or excited.
Apple wants to make newspaper and magazine subscriptions available on iTunes and has been messing around with this idea for a while now. Even before the iPad was launched.
Some publishing companies released an iPad version of their work to go along with the iPad's release. Time Inc. was one of them.
Of course it seems like a bright idea, but after you think about it, the question is money. Print and online subscriptions go for $4-$5, and when you can get it for less through database subscriptions or iTunes. Publishing companies like to use their database subscriptions to gain customers and advertisers.
Apple takes a 30% revenue on everything it sells on iTunes, and hopes to do the same with periodicals.
The iPad has hopes of making magazines and newspapers more engaging to the audience rather than just the glossy finish on the print version. Publishers hope that Apple's iTunes will help increase sales since songs, video, and other downloads do very well.
iTunes still has a small amount of books, but the iPad will allow a much better experience which will increase the amount of e-books in the future.
It makes me wonder what will take place of the magazine racks at the check out. Maybe Amazon's Kindle and Barnes and Noble's Nook will follow. This is just another step towards less print articles.
Go Green?
When making friends, it's important to learn about their particular qualities. If you really want to get close to a friend, you must figure out what's inside of them as well. Be friends with your computer.
Instead of taking everything you see on the screen for granted, learn to change and edit webpages to your liking.
Journalists will increasingly find the need for skills that computer science departments are teaching.
The article, "Hack Into Hackers," by Nicholas Carlson, points out that it's the new journalist's job to learn "enough computer science and software engineering to be able to design tools for information gathering, synthesis, analysis and circulation." Basically to do everything that is involved with being a journalist.
Because of the evolving news world, journalists aren't sticking to one area of reporting. Traditional news jobs are going to becoming less prevalent where internet blogs and microblogging sites are gaining on their audiences.
In the reading, "technology firms like Yahoo and Google" are mentioned as examples of how man, technology and journalism have teamed up to make a power trio.
As social media continues to evolve into an everyday necessity for people across the globe, journalists are the ones who are having to learn and evolve the most with the changes. Journalists are having to learn how to use more than just a notepad and a pen but rather online tools like Facebook and Twitter are an essential part of a journalists proverbial "bag of tricks."
Does it ever seem like all you see online are topics about who's going to rehab, who got divorced, who wore what to the latest fashion show, or stories about the "bare-foot bandit"? Why have newspapers (both online and in print) chosen to run more articles on seemingly unimportant topics as opposed to the real issues? Because those are the types of stories that sell.
Based on a recent article Washington Post writer Paul Farhi writing for the American Journalism Review, consumers are more interested in these types of topics than they are ones that thirty years ago would have been considered newsworthy.
Farhi states that if you check out any major news network, you will find a list of top-viewed and most recommended links and videos to watch (CBS, NBC, ABC to name a few). Go to one now and see what you find. Chances are the top hits are not all going to be on the war in Iraq or what the Tea Party is up to, but articles that have headlines that jump out. Novelty is becoming increasingly more important these days.
Does that mean that these topics are any less important than they were in the time of Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings? Not necessarily, but the people behind the scenes of newspapers have realized that they just aren't going to bring in the money as they once did.
I believe a reason for the switch in headline "stories" is the changing audience. Younger consumers tend to be more aware of what is going on in the world without needing to be reminded of it 24-7. We have access to all these amazing online tools and resources to allow us to get short tidbits of stories without needing to sit down and read a newspaper to do so. For the older generation, however, they still rely on newspapers to get their information (and do they honestly care if Britney has cleaned up her act).
While is is unnerving to think that we care more about people's personal lives than we do real issues, hopefully newspapers and online sources alike can find a way to continue attracting consumers to their products, so that we do not lose anything and everything newsworthy.
We have magazines and tabloids for a reason, and newspapers should not feel that they need to compete with them.
While anyone can be a journalist nowadays, it doesn't mean that everyone has or understands the core principles of journalism.
The Next Ethics? Media Ethics Workshop, hosted by Kent State University on Sept. 16, gathered skilled journalists, college professors and prospect journalism students to discuss the current newswriting and reporting practices in today's media.
Among the distinguished speakers at the conference was Arianna Huffington,Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Huffinton Post. In her speech, Ms. Huffington acknowledged that journalism practices were changing and, due to the introduction of new technology, forthcoming journalists needed to adapt to a new journalism environment.
Ms. Huffington encourages the new era of journalism through the use of blogs or social media. However, she believes that "today's journalists should re-visit and learn from the old-fashion journalism." In other words, journalists today should keep in mind the true essential ethics behind Journalism as presented by the Society of Professional Journalists:
- Journalists should demonstarte honesty, fairness, and audacity when gathering information and reporting news.

Undetected people may be watching you right now. They may be absolutely anywhere, spying on your every move.
The unusual irony about this is you allow it to happen. You put yourself out there to be detected nearly every single day.
What am I talking about, you ask? I am talking about social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare.
Social networking sites have become ever increasingly popular not only to the public but also to journalists.
Journalists typically use the websites in a professional manner like posting information about journalism or news that may be happening around them.
The public, on the other hand, tend to use the networking websites in a personal manner. They update their statuses multiple times a day, sometimes even including what their location is.
Burglars have been eying in on those statuses, using them to plan their next attack.
Now, you may be thinking, "This can't happen to me." The truth is, "Yes, it can." I'm sure this man never thought it could happen to him.
Burglars are also banding together to create a "burglary ring".
What can you do to protect yourself? Simple, don't post personal information on the Internet or add people you don't know.
If you must post personal information don't include your current location or whether you may be home or not.
To try and counter-act these attacks there is a website called pleaserobme.com. The site is used to inform the public on the dangers of social networking sites.
Now that you have been informed on the dangers of social networking sites, hopefully you will take caution and protect yourself.
Happy networking.
© Blogger template On The Road by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009
Back to TOP