Blogs

An Irish blog that I have found extrememly interesting of late is Ken Foxes blog. Ken is a journalist for The Sunday Tribune but also keeps his own news blog. I enjoy Ken’s blog as after you have read his article in the newspaper, there is additional information and graphics to be found on his blog. It is also nice to see a professional journalist keeping blogs instead of citizen journalism

Tweeting twits?

It is difficult to know whether Twitter is just another form of advertisement for celebrities or if it is a genuine news distributor. Maybe it is a form of both but unfortunately it is difficult to take a site where celebrities post sneaky pictures of their partners in less than nothing seriously and hard to believe that breaking accurate news can appear on the same site. The feature that makes Twitter so unique and successful is by far it’s simplistic layout . This eats right into the hands of the ongrowing net culture and hand held devices . Interaction is once again key with this social network but I have to say I think I’ll stay on the fence for a little while longer, it hardly shows professional roles at it’s best.

http://twitter.com/

A little more transparent?

While researching Transparency I found that KCNN dealt with the matter and explained it better than most  other sites. Boundaries in journalism are difficult to define as transparency is good but how much do we have to disclose? No sites can really clarify they can only suggest.In one article  on KCNN it states that “Personal biases, even unconscious ones, affect the journalist as well.” It also outlines ways to be transparent and specifically asks people to interact with their website as it is not a clearly defined subject. Some users favour sites like this that do not try to pretend that they know everything about everything. I certainly did. http://www.kcnn.org/about/about_kcnn/

Room for all ?

I can not understand all the discussions and arguements about online journalism taking over mainstream journalism. If you take a second to think about it, Television did not get rid of radio and cinema did not get rid of television and the internet did not kill cinema therefore we have established long ago that one form of media does not get rid of the next. As long as journalists maintain professionalism,high quality accurate material, they will be relied on for the truth , the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Not a care in the world for the Gaeltachts.

Enda Kenny must be hell bent on getting rid of the national language completely as he is persistent with trying to remove Irish as a compulsary language on the Leaving Certificate. I can hear the sighs and whispers already ” Of course the Journalism and Irish student or better known as one of the Gi2 girls'” is going to start complaining about this but in all seriousness does he not realise that this could potentially ruin the economy in Gaeltacht areas. If Irish is not compulsary students  will not feel the need to go to summer colleges in Gaeltacht regions and parents will not feel the need to send them. Leading to crisis in the economy in rural areas, because that is really what we need in Ireland at the moment Enda ,more economical instability!

Is there any real need for qualified journalists anymore?

I could not continue this blog without making reference to this awful question. The question that every journalism student dreads, with the vastly progressing net culture becoming increasingly powerful and many people feeling that they can now sit at a laptop and become a journalist via blogs is there really any need for a degree in it? Everyday it is becoming extremely disheartening to be a journalism student as you are continuously reading stories about the new robot journalists and the ipad becoming compulsary for jounalism students in Missouri school of journalism. With the introduction of the net culture and new technology are they saying we are now unable to do the job ourselves?

How ever did we manage before?

If only it was all this simple.

A quick guide to social networking.

Oh Dear!

Oh My News was one of the first internet publications to tackle the concept of citizen journalism when it was founded during the year of the millenium. In 2004 the website had over 32,000 citizen journalists and it  boasts articles such as how citizen journalism changed my life and The Awe-Inspiring Power of Citizen Journalism.

Ireland-The Fear of Interaction?

The lack off interactivity on Irish news sites is frustrating. One of the main aims of online journalism is the fact that there should be some form of interactivity of communication in question. Irish news sites have not seemed to have caught on to this idea as many of our top Irish news sites do not have comment boxes at the end of their articles or pictures etc. Maybe the sites feel like they might be too too heavily criticised or have a fear of letting the public interact with them. Take The Irish Independent and The Irish times for example. Of course you have email addresses and contact information if you wish to complain about something but where are the discussion oppurtunities or the the comment boxes?

And the award goes to…

While surfing the net recently I came across an extraordinary site named theconcentra.org. A site that portrays multimedia at it’s best by posting the worlds most fascinating video journalism blogs and creating an awards event for them. Most of these blogs deal with heart wrenching matters and as a whole it is a site that could spark much discussion. The only disappointing aspect of this site is more often than not the video blogs may not play on theconcentra.org and you may have to youtube some of the names to find the videos in whole. Here is an example of a video blog that can be found on theconcentra.org