Tech Blog – Steve Yelvington and the Progress of Journalism February 15, 2011
Posted by acusumano in : Assignments , trackbackIn class last week, I had the (mis)fortune of having to display my blog to my fellow students. On the bright side, it was a bigger audience than I’ll probably have the rest of the semester, but I was forced to confront the fact that, as much as I like to think I’ve progressed as a writer and journalist over the past few years, I don’t know the first thing about writing for the Web.
Below, an excerpt from my original summary of the third chapter of the Briggs text:
As anyone can have their own blog, it’s only fitting that news itself has become a much more collaborative process given all the new technology that bridges the gap between citizens and the media elite. Even sites as prominent as CNN now rely heavily on readers submitting news stories and videos. This global sharing process, dubbed “crowdsourcing,” creates a more transparent news environment, so the cream rises to the top.
Zzzzzzzzzz. No links. No pizazz. Just a dull block of text. (I hope the revised version is a little better.) But I’m not alone, as Steve Yelvington laments on his blog. Despite the abundance of new technology, journalism hasn’t shown much progress in the past 50 years. Well, I’m making the call to journalists everywhere: let’s get our acts together.
Spice things up! I’m just as guilty as anyone else when it comes to the boring and bland blog that will languish as another unloved Internet entity in perpetuity. But I’m going to change that. That’s the first step, right? Making a bold pronouncement so that I’ll have no choice but to follow through or otherwise risk the wrath of my readers and/or professor?
Let’s get some pictures in here! 
That’s Zooey Deschanel to the right. Perhaps I’ll aim for some more relevant pictures in the future, but for right now I defy anyone to click away from a page with a Zooey Deschanel pic (unless you’re heading to do a Google image search).
The bottom line is that the field is evolving, nearly on a daily basis at this point, and we need to make our mark. There are far too many competing platforms for journalism of all sorts to lose the audience’s attention to, so before they turn to that “(500) Days of Summer” DVD or listen to a She & Him song, let’s not return journalism to its former glory–let’s build a new glory.
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