Blogging is a great way to stretch the muscles in your forearms and wrists. It allows your mind to breathe and stretch while working off those few extra calories you gained at that Chinese restaurant down the street. It is a release; there is no restriction on what the writer can write. No particular form really has to be followed. It can actually be quite therapeutic. You can blog drunk at 2 a.m. on a Tuesday, and it seen as totally applicable to the task at hand. There are no fire-breathing editors or impossible deadlines - only a scotch on ice and Brian Eno playing somewhere in the background of your broken-down basement suite. There is no need for verification or attribution. Credible journalists never blog. You can use a picture with four keys that spell "blog" instead of finding a photo that better portrays your ideas. You can do anything.
My Opinion on Blogging in April:
After four months, my perception of the role blogging plays in journalism has definitely changed. Although I still don't believe bloggers should be held to the same standard as working journalists, they are an integral part of the way the news is displayed in modern times. I see blogging as a way for journalists to practice writing short, concise pieces. It can also serve as verification on mainstream news stories, which ultimately keeps reporters in check and gives the public (theoretically) more accurate news. Its inevitability as a mainstay in journalism brings me to realize that I should start my own blog, and do what I can to get my name out there. In today's world of journalism, beginners must know how to sell themselves, so I hope to begin doing just that.
My Thoughts on the Class
As far as the class is concerned, I thought it was useful to have such an in-depth approach to the future of journalism, but it didn't meet my expectations as far as a proofreading course is concerned. Although there was a lot of accuracy exercises, I expected a different approach to the class. I agree with the statement made in Max's blog post , which went as follows: "The incorporation of blogging into the class seemed like a fresh approach at first (albeit with no direct relation to proofreading or copyediting), but blogging ultimately took on an unduly pivotal role in the class, especially considering the presence of our more in-depth Online Reporting class." Although blogging is definitely changing journalism and may be an asset to beginner journalists, in my opinion there wasn't enough emphasis on copyediting and proofreading itself. Indeed, we did have an entire class dedicated to online journalism this semester, so the implementation of another online-based class was superfluous.
Overall, though, it's always good to stretch your writing muscles, and I liked the interactivity of the class (commenting on posts.) I hope to use the blogging I completed this term to my advantage; having a series of blog posts about the future of journalism may be useful when I meet a potential employer in the future.
Here are some comments I made on classmates' blogs:
Comment 1
Comment 2
Comment 3
Comment 4
Comment 5
Note: Image created by Katie Bowell on wordpress website.
No comments:
Post a Comment