That being said, I am on the hunt again. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time working at The Oakland Press in Pontiac, the commute is starting to get to me and I’d really like to find something that I can A, drive to in a shorter time period than 1 hour, and B, something that will offer me a decent working schedule. As much as I”m a night owl, I’m totally ready for a normal 8-5 Mon-Fri schedule like all the other people. If I get lucky and land something, I will miss not being stuck in rush hour.

Also included are my resume and cover letter for the copy editing position available at annarbor.com. If it’s still open when I graduate, I may actually apply for it.

Enjoy scrolling through!

Resume and Cover Letter
This is what I have for my resume and cover letter. They both still need quite a bit of work, but given the time and formatting constraints I found myself under, this was what I have come up with to suit me currently:

Cover Letter:
Annarbor.com cover letter
Resume:
resume

Saline Stories
These are some stories I wrote as part of the Saline Reporter. Topics vary but they are all feature-type stories about locals in a particular Southeast MI area.

published Saline Reporter Pet Expo story 01-12-10

published sewing contest 11-21-09

published Milan anniversary 12-27-09

published trick or treat story
This is the picture that goes with the story:

Bottom, Jack Corbett. Left to right: Rachel Easler, 8 years, Sarah Easler, Steve Pierce, his son Ben Pierce, 8 years, Mary Ann Pierce.

Echo Pages
These are the pages/articles I copy edited, designed and/or headlined. I wish I was able to keep better track of the changes made in the copy editing articles so the changes could be viewed, but unfortunately I saved the final draft without keeping the original.

Copy edited pages:
Life:
L.102609.forumreview.nbL.091609.KanyeWest.jfb

News:
n.101809.autism.ae
11-09 local H1N1

Sports:
s020810womenstennis.ar
Sports 11-2-09 swimming

Opinions:
obama opinion 10-05-09
o.110509.athletes.ds

Designed pages:
P03 Echo 0118 LOCAL CMYK
P04 Echo 1130 Nation & World CMYK
P08 Echo 1105 OPINIONS BW

Headlined pages:
P01 Echo 0208 FRONT CMYK
P01 Echo 032510 FRONT CMYK
P04 Echo 1119 NATION & WORLD BW

This I Believe About Digital Journalism

I believe digital journalism is a rapidly changing concept and one that will continue to change the face of journalism for years to come. It is a new, many-to-many communication model with more interaction between readers and journalists, thanks to the Internet, that also includes citizen journalism and a loss of formality while incorporating a new set of ethics.

Formerly, journalism was a profession reserved for the few rather than the masses. The media, consisting of the metropolitan newspapers or broadcasting companies, would disseminate the news to the people, which made them a kind of elitist class. The communication between these two groups was described as a “one-to-many” communication model, where the media was considered a single entity and the people many entities. Now, with the advent of digital journalism, the people disseminate the news to each other, and hence the many-to-many communication model was born.

With this new increase in people using the media to advocate their own ideas, a different economic system for the media came to be. Advertisers were the main sponsors of newspapers and TV broadcasting; however, government interests, individual activists and various contributions from readers all help to form the budget.

However, as new advertisers come into the light and more people use more interactive and less informal ways of broadcasting their news, ethical complications arise. Bloggers and community activists who post news online or in a bulletin often don’t have the same ideals in mind as someone who has gone to school specifically for journalism and is aware of the problems and implications of writing a story a specific way. With the widespread use of the Internet, anyone can post any information they desire, without regard for objectivity. It is imperative digital journalism retains the guidance of traditional American journalism practiced by the larger newspaper and broadcast corporations.

Despite this setback, digital journalism has done many positive things for the news environment. Reporting has become more widespread globally and news has reached people in more creative ways than was possible before. Different formats like video, audio and cell phones help spread news around the world so that nearly anyone has access to any news at any time. Citizen journalism has helped community members become more aware of what is going on in their own area and get different angles of events that may not have been covered by their local newspaper or other media outlet.

I believe citizen journalism is one of the most important aspects when defining digital journalism. While citizen journalism can manifest itself in many forms, such as personal newsletters or articles by non-staffers in a paper, it is most used as an online form like blogs or message boards. Slowly, media have been allowing these forms onto their own Web sites by allowing comment sections and links to blogs of everyday citizens. While not every paper makes the decision to dive deeper into the idea by adding or associating with things like a completely citizen-run Web site that allows citizens to post their own news, or an add-on citizen reporter, the ideas are available for the taking.

While there is much more to digital journalism than what is discussed above, it is these core concepts that guide my belief. The ideas of digital journalism and the concepts which surround it may grow and change, but the use of the Internet and citizen journalism, as well as more widespread reporting and a change from a one-to-many to many-to-many communication model, will always be the core ideals of digital journalism to me.

Anyway, he was testifiying before Congress about the future of the Web. I wonder what the context was? Why would there be congressional hearings about a subject like that? Just curiosity on my part.

But getting past that, what is the future of the Web? Berners-Lee says it is three things: First, he says it will get better at helping people manage, integrate and analyze data. Then he says the Web will “be accessible from a growing diversity of networks (wireless, wireline, satellite, etc.) and will be available on a ever increasing number of different types of devices.” The last thing he says is that Web applications will become more common throughout the environment.

That last idea is a little hard for me to imagine, at least in terms of some of the objects he described. Example: refrigerators. It’s hard for me to imagine a computer with access to the Internet on a fridge door. I can picture a computer there no sweat, but it seems like a waste of energy otherwise.

As for cars, well, that’s a whole seperate story. We already have enough problems as it is keeping our hands on the wheel when we text and drive, so adding a computer to look up weather, road conditions, traffic, etc? I can just see accident rates tripling in the next 20 years.

I’m not trying to be a negative Nancy here–I see Berners-Lee’s point. The Web is constantly growing, and the applications listed above are only two of many many possibilities. It just happens I don’t like those two applications. Something else like stoves or coffee machines to look up recipes would ideally be  safer and possibly more efficient choices.

Lastly, Berners-Lee said the future of the Web rests on these two ideas: technological protocols, and social conventions. By technological protocols he means codes like HTML and HTTP (the very beginning of sites before the ://) but as for social conventions, those are more people based. These could include networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, or other forms of interaction like AIM and message boards.

How does this affect digital journalism? More complex codes could mean better information and a higher quality of viewing that information–videos and the like.  An ever-changing social face of the Web includes more interaction between readers and journalists–comment boxes and message boards could only be the beginning. It might be possible some  day for readers to comment on live stories as they’re happening, if something like that hasn’t happened already. The many-to-many model is definitely more applicable here and while you can’t get much more than many-to-many, perhaps, as technology becomes cheaper and cheaper, it will one day be possible for an “everybody-to-everybody” model of communication.

Their idea that independent reporting has come under threat of utter ruin is not unimaginable. Everyone nowadays complains of the media bias and how it seems nothing important gets covered, only special interest stories. However, the idea that ”credible independent news reporting cannot flourish without news organizations of various kinds, including the print and digital reporting operations of surviving newspapers” is also interesting. It’s like independent writing needs the media conglomerates in order to realize its mission–report what others missed.

Is this the way journalism is headed? I think there is just as much bias in the usual news outlets as everyone else does, but I also agree with the need to keep the “typical” journalism form around: the newsroom. Downie and Schudson write,

“But something else would be lost, and we would be reminded that there is a need not just for information, but for news judgment oriented to a public agenda and a general audience. We would be reminded that there is a need not just for news but for newsrooms. Something is gained when reporting, analysis, and investigation are pursued collaboratively by stable organizations that can facilitate regular reporting by experienced journalists, support them with money, logistics, and legal services, and present their work to a large public.”

It’s also important to keep in mind the function of actual reporters and not rely on citizen journalism entirely. There is just no way the Internet can replace the face-to-face interaction newspapers and broacast media provide. Everything is going new-age technology, but I see no reason why that should really be everything. There have been lots of studies done already showing people who rely completely on the Internet for their relationships (ie Facebook, MySpace, online chat rooms, etc) have a harder time relating to people in real life.

It can be related to journalism too, at least in some ways. It’s harder to act as a reporter and interview sources when all you’re used to is a computer screen. Granted, that’s probably  a bit extreme, but nowadays it wouldn’t surprise me.

Anyway, before I get too distracted, this whole article I found quite relevant to my situation because it’s all about the decline of newspapers–the very industry I want to join. How will they turn out in the next six months, when I gradutate? How about the next year, when I might (but probably won’t, at least not in this current market) have a job? Will everything be entirely digital? What will I have left to edit? Downie and Schudson already mentioned the fact that, “In most cities, fewer newspaper journalists were reporting on city halls, schools, social welfare, life in the suburbs, local business, culture, the arts, science, or the environment, and fewer were assigned to investigative reporting. Most large newspapers eliminated foreign correspondents and many of their correspondents in Washington. The number of newspaper reporters covering state capitals full-time fell from 524 in 2003 to 355 at the beginning of 2009. A large share of newspaper reporting of government, economic activity, and quality of life simply disappeared.”

What am I going to have left to edit? I never really read the local section of the paper when I was younger because I was more interested in the comics and crossword, but as I’ve become older, I want to find out more about what’s going on in the community I live in and it’s becoming harder and harder to do so.

I know the newspaper industry will never be what I want it to (because I don’t live in 1953) but I hope it can pick itself up a little bit and still recover and merge with the ongoing Internet revolution. The report, as much as I did like it for the topic it covered, was still depressing. It just makes me completely want to turn around and change my major to something that appears to have more promise than newspapers do right now.

I also have to say though, I am glad Downie and Schudson don’t support a government bailout of newspapers–they already tried with the auto industry and so far that’s been a sham. Plus, I believe there’d be some serious First Amendment protests by the ACLU and the like over governmental control of the press. Not to mention it’s none of the government’s business to save private industries.

To do this, they can use several different methods. One is the evolving communications method; which has changed from one-to-many distribution, centralization, filtering, and profitability; to decentralized, unfiltered, many-to-many, and egalitarian.

The rise of citizen journalism has also affected how journalists interact with the public. Ordinary people can be journalists now, so those who are professional reporters have to step up their game in some ways to create the same effects.

But, there are those who are definitely making progress. Ariana Huffington of The Huffington Post is one such example. Her site offers up-to-the-minute posts about topics such as healthcare, environmentalism and the like, and allows users to comment and post reactions to them. It’s not really an advocacy site, but I think it demonstrates the growing concepts of the one-to-many model, as well as citizen journalism.

Of course, there’s always still work to be done! The world is always evolving, and journalism is just a small part of it. I think it’s fascinating to be part of that evolution and see just where things go in the future.

There were quite a few “layers” of citizen journalism I didn’t know about. For example, I’d never heard of “transparency blogs”–those kept up by the editor of a newspaper or whatever that go into detail about the “inner workings of the newsroom” and allows a public discussion with readers about it. I think that’s pretty neat–if a student (or anyone else for that matter) is interested in going into journalism, they can get a sense of what it’s like.

I also like the idea of adding a print edition to citizen journalism. It’s such a prevalent notion that citizen journalism is completely online with blogs, user comments and the like, but it can exist in print too. Maybe it’s because I’m such a fan of the print industry.

Again, it’s a great “how-to” tool for cautious media moguls. I think citizen journalism is something that should be embraced–I think there are a lot of stories of potential interest to readers that wouldn’t be covered because they are too localized or there aren’t enough staff to cover them.

Overall I’m not sure how I feel about the article. I think he makes some good points but gets distacted by his own (rather leftist–or progressive, as they like to be called now–I noted, so perhaps it doesn’t surprise me he wants to “progress” forward with the press) agenda. I think it’s important for people to take a stand on an issue they believe in, and use the press to its fullest advantage. His example of the mass transit issue was a very good one. I don’t agree with everything he wants, but it’s an issue I didn’t know was such a problem, and even his small mention of it helped bring it to light as something to be considered for the future, and I wouldn’t have had a clue about it otherwise.

What does this mean for the future of journalism? I’m not really sure, unfortunately. I think digital journalism can play a large role in shaping the press for the future–and already does. But I also think Cunningham is a bit behind the times when he writes the press should step up and pay more attention to issues. With the advent of the Internet, everyone and anyone can post whatever issues are on their minds and let the world know. While I certainly support the main press (especially newspapers) I can’t help but think they will fall further and further behind as journalism takes a more individual approach.

Another reason why I didn’t like it was because it sounded like he wanted the press to find issues to complain about and I think he went about it the wrong way. I think the media are a great way to get issues people are concerned with out to a mass audience, but I also am a firm believer in the objectivity of the press, so any issues that are raised should be given equal weight. Perhaps I am being too old-fashioned in my beliefs, but I like to think of the press as being informative and truthful, and when both sides of an issue are not raised I find it hard to believe the press is doing its job.