Journalism Made Easy: Technology!!! - Comm404

"Information wants to be free." Technology makes this happen.

Technology can be overwhelming at times, but if used correctly any journalist can make their lives and the lives of their readers much easier and much more interactive, hence bettering the process for everyone involved. Journalism is news, and news should be a conversation between the journalist and their readers. Although this method is frowned upon (many believe it should be in lecture form), I think this is the most effective way to gain loyalty from your audience and be successful. A great way to start this conversation is through the comments that readers leave on either a news site or their blogs, which is evident by this blog. Have a question? A comment you'd like feedback on? Let me know! Let's talk about it here! More often than not these comments are left annonymously through a screen name, which protects the identity of the reader, but some newspapers find this troubling. When it comes to legal cases and people are commenting about the case or have information, authorities want real names so they know who to go to for this information. Doesn't this defeat the purpose of true journalism? Screen names protect the identities of commenters as well as possible people with tips or leads.

Besides comments, journalists can converse with readers through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Flickr and many others. Journalists need to get involved with who their reaching out to, because without that they are defeating the purpose of their civic duty. Although I agree with monitoring comments for offensive material, or even threatening materials, all others should be left for others to read and leave comments on. Not only should the readers be able to communicate with the author, but with other readers who may or may not share their same viewpoint.

To optimize the internet and digital journalism, journalists should attach appropriate tags to their material (which is definitely lacking in this blog) and give appropriate headlines so that any search in a search engine could provide their article. This is a great for a reader to stumbleupon a topic they may not have particularly been looking for, but found it to be relevant to their needs.

Keeping track of readers, comments, site visits, and other materials should also be done to ensure that the internet is being used properly and that all parties involved are benefiting. A great way to do this is to gather the information and put it into a data site, such as Hitbox or Omniture, to keep track of this and in an organized manner. By knowing who is reading when and how and what their reactions are, the better the internet and other forms of technology can be used.

"The first rule in public speaking is to know your audience"....so don't go blindly into the field of journalism, know what you're doing, who you want to reach out to, and how you're going to accomplish it before you do it.