Blogging: Today’s answer to Mailer and Wolfe?

Over the course of my research for the end of year essay, I came across the idea that blogging is akin to the rise of the New Journalism of the 60’s.

Children of the revolution

Researching for my essay I came a across a journalist called Christopher Allbritton. What he has done is truly amazing, and, in many respects, he has laid my worries about the viability of blogs to one side. Well, for the moment at least.

Ups and downs for Internet traffic

The main newspaper websites in Britain have experience losses and gains in the first part of the year.

Journalists’ numbers not in decline

According to Paul Myners, the Chairman of the Guardian Media Group, the number of journalists is not in decline.

Citizen Journalism sites

ohmynews.com

This site is really quite revolutionary. It is truly interactive and is the best in citizen journalism.

readers can directly contact the writer/journalist/reporter with feedback and extra information. In fact, the reader is encouraged to do so.

However there is one major and serious problem with the site in my opinion.

The quality of writing is terrible. Here are a couple of intros to pieces that appeared on the site on Tuesday 22nd April:

After six weeks during which no actual votes were taken but much money and hot air was expended, the race for the Democratic nomination for president resumes in earnest this Tuesday, when New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama square off for a share of Pennsylvania’s 158 delegates.

And:

The coalition government of nationalist the Awami National Party (ANP) and the liberal democrat Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in Pakistan’s North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) released the leader of a banned pro-Taliban movement from jail as part of its first step toward negotiated settlement of the law and order problems in tribal areas and some settled districts.

These are terribly written intros and are very hard to digest and understand. If such sites are hoping to continue, and become better they must teach their contributors how to write properly for news.

In the main however, the site adheres o many of the democratic principles of online journalism and is truly revolutionary. If it gets the quality of writing under control it may become seriously important.

 Indymedia.ie

Again Indy media in the main is a pretty good site. It certainly gives an alternative view as compared with the mainstream media who tend to ignore many of the stoire that are on the site. Again also it is interactive and will take all its content from citizen journalists.

There are a couple of problems however. Firstly the site is clearly left leaning. This is not a bad thing. But if people want to get the whole story and the truth this is not the place for it. It gives a biased one side view and really the rule that they do not give space to facists, is really a dressed up way of saying no right wingers please.

And again some of the writing is terrible. How are people expected to consume this stuff if the writing is so poor. These sites will never take off if they continue to publish such unedeted crap.

Here is an example of something which should never be allowed:

Thanks also to all those groups who helped us poster and who publicised the demonstration and who came along. Thanks to HOPI, to the ISN and the WSM, to Eirigi and Sinn Fein, to Anti-war Ireland and the Irish Anti War Movement, to the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers, to Connolly youth and to Labour youth. And thanks also to the newly-formed TUFP – Trade Union Friends of Palestine. If there’s anyone I left out, it wasn’t deliberate – its just that so many groups came together to help us out.

I am personally in the same boat on Gaza and the West Bank. But what is this? Is this a press release? Because it certainly isn’t news…

Conclusion

The problem as I have said in previous posts and in this one is quality. Some of the writing it seems could have been done by children. This is no good. People need to be able to digest information, especially on the internet as people’s attention span is drastically reduced when looking at a screen.

I believe the same problems affect citizen journalism that affects mainstream journalism. On sites like ohmynews and indymedia there is the gatekeeper aspect to deal with too. It may be less apparent nevertheless it is still a factor.

If these type of sites are to flourish they need to improve their standards, drastically.

Econmics could be the death of citizen journalism

Citizen journalism is a fantastic idea. The concept means that any censoring of images is reduced. It means that viewers can see events as they happen when they happen without any opinion from big news corporations.

iReport gets some competition

CBS has launched a new citizen journalism website to compete with CNN’s iReport website.

43% would pay more for newspaper

43% of newspaper buyers would pay up to a euro extra if newspapers wanted to sell add ons such as books and DVDs. That’s according to a survey compiled by Ernst and Young for Monday’s Guardian media pullout.

Website advertising comparison

The Canberra Times on this particular page defines the difference between advertising and editorial content.

Notice that, as usual, there is a moving ad in the banner. Most sites have these, however some are not recognisable as advertising. The Canberra Times web page on the other hand  immediately conveys to the reader that this is an ad.

Advertising here is mainly down the right hand side of the screen, the usual place for ads. However there is also an ad in the area where text goes (just under the article). I would presume that anyone that reads the article will see the ad and look at it long enough to decode it.

Compare this with the Seattle Times and this pieceand we see that American newspapers are far more agressive when it comes to advertising. Again there are those moving ads. But this time they are at the very top of the screen – the place the eye probably looks first. Then we see the banner and immediately underneath that we have another ad before the story has even started. At this point it is interesting to note that the only colour on the page is that from the ads. Maybe this is a conscious decison on a part of the web editor to make the advertising stand out far more.

In the Seattle Times we also see that there are ads within the text. This time they are not at the end of the article but are central and within the text. It would definitely draw the eye while reading and be decoded, and therefore, the ad will work.

Overall the advertising content is definitely different to the editorial content. To a trained eye the difference is immediately apparent. However, most eyes may not be that trained. This is who advertisers are looking to ensnare.

Garret Fitzgerald dives into interactivity debate

In his column today for the Irish Times Garret Fitzgerald, the former Taoiseach of Ireland, has dived into the debate about interaction between print and electronic media.