Dear Blog...

I am sitting on my couch, watching When Harry Met Sally and studying for finals. Some things never change. I have had this same method for studying since my freshman year. But now I am a senior and these are my last finals ever. So it feels bitter sweet.

I would be lying if I didn’t say this term kicked my ass. If I hadn’t absolutely needed a breadth course, I probably would have dropped Power Journalism after the first day – and the first math test. But I stuck to my guns, sometimes more successful than others, and I am glad I did. While I haven’t always had time to update my blog regularly, the flame has been lit and I plan to continue to let it burn. Now that school is over, it will be my goal to update my blog every day – ok, maybe not on the weekends but as often as I can.

I have learned to love blogging for several reasons. For one, it is a style of writing I used to love and have long since forgotten about. Picking it up again has been like discovering a long lost friend. For two, it has helped me keep up to date on the news and what is going on in the world of journalism. Actually seeking out topics to blog about is a fun pastime and helps me feel connected to the world in a way I haven’t felt before. There were definitely weeks that went by that I played around with my blog more than I checked my facebook.

The best part for me is embracing the new age of journalism, and liking it a lot more than I thought I would. Now, looking back on my last four years of school, if anyone were to ask me what classes I recommend, the list would consist of Media Ethics, Communication Law, and Power Journalism. Each offers its own invaluable lessons. Scott Maier manages to humanize the world of journalism, even though he is teaching about technological advances in the field. He teaches journalism in a way no one else does and reassured me, as a writer, that journalism isn’t dying; it is being reborn. I will manage to get a job, it just might be different than what I thought it would be. For that, I thank him and I also will continue to blog and generate new skills. Like Stephen Doig said, you don’t have to be an expert in every thing, but having a general understanding of various skills makes you a more valuable journalist.

Times are a Changing

It’s incredible how fast the media changes and adapts. I was thinking about this today when I was trying to remember my twitter account password. I think I had a twitter my freshman year, mainly to follow famous people or characters on TV shows. My sister talked me into it and frankly I thought it was pretty stupid.

Then I was taking a class where it was mandatory to read the New York Times every day. This required either spending $80 on a subscription or getting to campus early enough to pick up a complementary issue before they were swooped up. I will shame ably admit I wasn’t much for reading the NY Times in print. It’s very massive and wordy and frankly displeasing to my eyes for some reason. So, I went the twitter route. I started following the NY Times and getting their little updates all day, every day. This was a lot easier than sifting through several pages every morning; I could scroll through the list and click on anything that piqued my interest.

This only lasted for maybe a term though. Twitter still couldn’t keep my interest. About a year later I had classmates telling me their teachers were having them cover events and give live twitter updates. I was dumbfounded. These classes were the same ones I had taken, only I had to go to the event and turn around a story before midnight. I can honestly say I have never taken a class where I have had to use twitter as homework. But students only a year behind me have. That’s how fast things change in the world of technology and media. By the time my sister gets to the School of Journalism in 2012 it will be a completely different ball game. My 2009 style book will like that pathetic 2003 version floating around the editing lab at Allen Hall. People pick it up when they want a good laugh.

Such is life. Should I re-enact my twitter account? Eh, one thing at a time I think. I am just finally (and still with slight trepidation) succumbing to the world of blogging. Part of me feels that blogging is going against everything I believe in, but the other part of me that kept a journal nearly every day for almost ten years likes the casualness of it all. A classmate of mine once said she can write the story for the newspaper but she needs her blog to reflect and get her personal thoughts out. Maybe blogs are more like diaries. I know one thing, in the short time I have been blogging and researching blogs, I have found some really great ones that I will continue to follow. I have a feeling this won’t be a fleeting fad like my twitter account.

And now that Facebook is being more hands-on in the journalism world, I will have to stay connected. I admit I am extremely fond of my Facebook and eager to see the things they come up with to keep journalists and sources connected. The world is getting increasingly smaller with time. Journalists will develop interconnected online communities to share news and find sources. As The Next Web put it, with the help of Facebook, “journalists can create communities of mini news reporters, that will use the page to post information they find in their area, whether this is geographical or within a particular industry.”

Journalists are going to have to get on board to stay on top. I don’t want to graduate from college and already be behind…

Blogging: Welcome to the Future

Surely I wasn’t the only aspiring writer who firmly believed the Internet was going to kill journalism? That the Internet’s bloody hands were choking the life out of traditional newspapers? My family would say to me around Christmas time, Thanksgiving or any such holiday, not to go into journalism because it is a dying field. No one reads anymore.

It’s just not true that no one reads anymore. They have just changed the way in which they read. Working for a small town weekly newspaper, there is no shortage of people filing into the office to tell us how much they love our paper. We cover what the Register Guard and Corvallis Gazette Times won’t. Local sports, local businesses, local people. I just did a story on a woman suffering from Mantle Cell Lymphoma. She has been a Junction City resident her whole life and now the community is pulling together to raise money for her stem cell transplant in a few months. Those are the stories the people in the Tri-County area love to read about. So they buy our paper and look forward to it every week.

Our publisher, Steve Rowland, refuses to put our paper on the Internet – he says that will kill the business and we will be giving away the news for free. He could be right, but lots of people out in this farm country don’t have access to the Internet at home, so they would still rely on a traditional newspaper delivered to their front door every Wednesday. In many ways I agree with Steve. Why bother going on the internet? Well, what about those people living in Salem, or Idaho, or Washington, who grew up in Monroe or Harrisburg and would like to read some local news? How convenient for them to read it online.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that the Internet has a purpose when it comes to journalism and I am only recently starting to see it. Where before I used to think reading through a computer screen would distance the writer from the readers, I learned from the readings this week how a blog actually brings them closer. They can ask questions, leave comments and have a conversation – something hardly doable with a print newspaper unless you write a letter to the editor. And even then, you aren’t getting to talk to the writer directly. Blogs can zero in on niche reporting in ways newspapers can’t. The people who care about that subject, area or topic of interest are the ones who will read your blog. As a writer, I know the people interested in what I’m doing are the ones I want reading my work.

I’m slightly embarrassed that I’m a senior in college and I have never kept a blog. I have resisted the change just like many dying newspapers. Now, by keeping a blog I can focus on the news I am interested in, facilitate conversations with my readers and do what’s most important to me: write.