Bloggers-in-Chief: What traditional journalists can learn from bloggers

When I spoke to KQED news editor Bruce Koon last week in my Digital Journalism class at Santa Clara University, he startled me with a prediction. Our topic delved into the dysfunctional relationship between traditional metropolitan newspaper and the blogs that depend on them. 

"This is the one area that worries me the most because even while new solutions or a business models emerge, there could be a period in which journalism and the blogs dependency on it will be hurt," he said. "Doing watchdog journalism requires a lot more capital than what bloggers necessarily have."

His answer was simple: follow something like Huffington Post model and merge the traditional with the contemporary. To elaborate on what the means, Koon suggests hiring bloggers throughout the online world who've maintained notable following and place them side-by-side with traditional journalists in brands capable of investing the necessary capital for investigative pieces that garnish a news company's status yet provides very little revenue.  

Here the news industry is able to merge the new with the old; provide readers a level of interactivity and informality that has come with the blogging world while maintaining the trustworthiness and reputation of century-old newspapers. 

Although the Huffington Post leans much closer to a blog than a traditional news  website, he suggests that major newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, which is currently facing the possibility of shutting its printing press, should have, in the early days of new media, enveloped rather than disenfranchised bloggers. 

But he also reveals that such an idea may be too late. 

"There are dozens of other outlets now and new options for us that the news audience is really fragment."

But I suspect it wouldn't hurt to try.

Koon Thinks College Journalism Students Have More Answers than Questions on the Fate of the News Industry

On Thursday, head of the news department at KQED, Bruce Koon explained to students of Sally Lehrman's Digital Journalism the current divide in the news industry between digital natives and non-natives. He defined digital natives as those roughly twenty-five and younger who've been raised in a society surrounded with digital pieces of technology: digital camera and camcorders, laptops, iPhones and PDAs etc.. Non-natives, he explained, are the majority of journalists, who are struggling to figure out what role such new pieces of technology play in the industry.

This paradigm is an interesting perspective on the challenges facing the news industry. It explains the panic that has engulfed prospective journalists wishing to break through in the field. In several of my own journalism classes, I've been bombarded with lecture after lecture on how journalism is going through an era of redefining. It's discouraging, if not outright heart-breaking to sit in class and hear established journalists describe the dilemma. 

Yet Koon's simple lecture is inspiring. He places the torch in our hands - the hands of aspiring journalists raised in an era of digital breakthroughs. He lets us know that digital natives won't face the severe challenges those in the industry currently face.

His speech leads me to think, perhaps, those industry should turn more towards young readers and ask them, "What do you think?" Perhaps more Journalism professors should turn to their students and ask, "What do you think is the answer?" Chances are, we know more than anyone else.

Against Your Own: When blood isn't thicker than party affiliation

Community-specific blogs tend to have an apparent political slant. For instance, readers don't usually turn to blogs sponsored by Latinos to gain balanced insight on issues like immigration reform. But where do the alliances of such blogs lie when two prominent members of the same community are pit against each other?

In an article published on The Root, a blog dedicated to exploring the issues of African Americans, an article entitled, "The GOP's Nutty Negro," illustrates the intricacies these online communities, especially those centered around ethnicity and religious background, tend to tackle. The article explores comments made by Alan Keye's, whose appointment as the Republican Party's first black Chairmen has garnished controversy from Democrats who criticized the choice as a lackluster attempt by the GOP to showcase the party's diversity. The article criticizes Keye's for making outlandish claims against the validity of Obama's election.

And although the blog exercises the liberty to use controversial words like "Negro" in their articles and headlines, author Lawrence Bobo makes no attempt to reach across the ideological table in an act of black solidarity, calling Keye's "a dispecable lunatic."

The fact that the publication defends President Obama is no surprise. But their all out attack on fellow African American, Alan Keye's illustrates that the community blog is rooted in is more than just Africanness but also political affiliation and shared ideology; it proves that it is not just an online publication aimed at "providing news to a variety of black perspectives," but an online publication aimed at providing news to the majority of black [democratic] perspectives.

Local Blogs in Print Test the Future of Newspapers

If your favorite blog was printed with advertisements and handed out for free, would you be more inclined to read it? Joshua Karps thinks so. Creator and inventor of the The Printed Blog, Karps published the first edition of the blog in Chicago and San Francisco last January. Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times wrote an article discussing the potential success and failure of Karps's idea.

According to Miller's article, the The Printed Blog is currently printed weekly in two metropolitan cities, yet Karps plans on expanding the company to print twice a day in cities across America. Run solely by volunteers, the blog is printed on cheap 11'' by 17'' paper and paid solely through advertisement. Eventually, Karps plans on allowing subscribers to pick and choose which blogs they wanted published on delivered to their house.

Yet is this model sustainable in the long-term or is it a quick fix for the failing newspaper industry? Where is the market? Where is the need? David Cohen, founder of Silicon Valley Newspapers believes he has the answer.

"There's a huge readership that wants the local news, and local businesses tend to increase their advertising in bad times because they have to capture people's attention," he told the New York Times.

Hyper-local news is also a new phenomena, like blogs, changing the face of journalism. Last Tuesday, Barry Bar, creator of the Coastsider, a new website covering Half Moon Bay and surrounding newspapers, spoke to my Digital Journalism class and discussed the success of his online publication. The online edition competed against, and sometimes beat, local metropolitan newspapers for stories. The era of citizen journalism is here and, in some communities, very strong.

So receiving your news from such avenues of citizen journalism in print is only a natural progression, no? Only time will tell.

Do Layouts Help with Legitimacy?

When I browse my google results for whatever I may be looking for, I stop and analyze the websites layout. Before I read even one word to figure out if the site contains the content I need, I look for professionalism - the layout, the graphics, the feel of of the site - ultimately, I'm looking to know: "is this website legitimate?" and I usually answer that question before reading a single word. 

BBC.com recently revamped their website incorporating altering green black blue and white color scheme. The layout is simple, easy to use and graphics and photography driven. When I visit the site, I know what story is leading the day and navigating the boxes. Although the stories don't include the lead - or the first few lines of the story - I find it easy to manage. And the jaunty analogue clock in the top right corner provides the English branding the BBC is famous for. 

Each time I access the New York Times online, it feels like a newspaper has just landed on the doorsteps of my desktop. The top half of the narrow and long page resembles the above-the-fold front page of almost every popular newspaper in America. Text reigns supreme here as if it say "we have a lot to say and it's all really important!" But in a medium where space is virtually infinite, cramming text in columns and around photographs seems simply to remind readers, "hey, this is the New York Times."

But the most popular news blog, The Huffington Post, seems to find a happy medium while maintaining its own brand and look. With images being the attention grabber for viewers, the website acknowledges that the majority of online consumers consume pictures, and consume them well. But the site has something to say about text. In the true blog fashion, fonts and font sizes collides into each other with no real purpose or organization. Although full of character, I don't think it is the best way to convey legitimacy. And the fact that it takes me a whole 2 minutes to scroll all the way through the several pictures to the bottom does not prove friendly to those with low connection speeds.

Legitimacy is key online. When any Tom, Dick, Harry can buy some server space and publish any information he feels necessary, layout and professionalism is the one opportunity news agencies can tell the world, "Hey, we're different! We're legit! Look how much time, effort, and money we put in our layout!"

Students Say Something Through Social Networking

Text messaging, IMs, video messaging, emailing, podcasts, and weblogs, oh my! Add social newtworking sites like Facebook and MySpace to the equation and you have over a thousand ways to remind your spouse to pick up some milk on his or her way home from work or wish your old college roommate a happy birthday.

No longer is what you say important, but how you say it. The politics of these social networking sites have become a part of pop culture. Walking the halls of campus, I tend to hear girls over the Facebook "status" (a minute by minute feed update similar to Twitter) of a certain love interest or an arch enemy. Guys brag over the pictures they were "tagged" standing beside attractive females or expensive bottles of alcohol. 

Everything you do on Facebook is a disclaimer to the world, making the social networking site, a world of its own. Here people convene in groups for a plethora of reasons: to show solidarity for atrocities like genocide or human rights violations or share a likeness for their favorite TV shows and movie actors. In addition, users can schedule events, invite friends, and message attendees. 

Thinking about it, Facebook itself encompasses an infinite and one ways of communicating. But with a so many ways to spread a word, are what we say as important as how we say it? This reminds me of the ending to the famous poem by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, entitled, "The Paradox of Our Time:"

"A time when technology can bring this letter to you

And a time when you can choose

Either to make a difference.... or just hit, delete."

Ethics and Mobile Phones

Journalism is an industry regulated by the trust and confidence of viewers. News moguls like CNN, MSNBC, and even Fox News rely on producing fair and balanced content to maintain their reputation. And they know, jeopardizing content jeopardizes viewership and the sometimes decades-old reputation built on honest reporting.

But what about blogs? Many, if not most, don't seek to provide readers a balanced outlook but rather their own perspective - sometimes honest yet sometime malicious. In the online world, where millions of blogs come and go daily with no warning, who's to regulate content? Who's to prevent me (other than my professor who regularly checks my content) from spreading a horrible rumor?

Transferring the ethical code that has evolved throughout the many years of professional journalism into this new medium where access to publishing is almost universal is, what I believe, the first dilemma behind the industry. The second, how do we make money off it?

Now lets segue seamlessly into the second part of my post: mobile news.

I use an iPhone and recently, before being assigned to do so, downloaded an application sponsored by the Associated Press that provides up to the minute feeds of the latest stories and photographs published by the A.P worldwide. I found the application very convenient, user friendly, and effective in providing me minute by minute news feeds.

In addition, the iPhone's full browser allows me to access any news website, which many, have mobile-specific platform tailored specifically for acceess among cell phones and Smart Phones.

Literally attached to the hip of almost every American, mobile devices are becoming the starting point for consumers of news.

What's It All About

So why am adding to the slew of blogs haunting cyberspace? What do I have to say that has been said before? The answer, simply put, is that this blog is part of a quarter-long assignment for my COMM 142B: Digital Journalism class. From what I can tell, its suppose to introduce us to this new phenomena of citizen journalism - how ordinary people are delivering news and information without jumping the hurdles of traditional publishing. 

I find it the assignment interesting, given the direction the industry is going. Perhaps it plays to the adage, "If you can't beat them, join them."

In terms of content, I'll be analyzing the structure, layout, content, functionality and interactivity of six different online publications in order to better understand the direction this new medium is taking journalism. I'll review top blogs like the Huffington Post and Pajamas Media, community-specific blogs like This Iranian American Life and Beirut Spring, traditional news medias like The New York Times Online and BBC Online (if you couldn't tell by now, I have an interest in international politics, specifically in areas in and around the Middle East.)

Sit back, enjoy and please post any comments or questions you may have.