In the section, ‘I blog, therefore I am’, David Kline suggests the power over and influence of blogs on the mass media outlets. I’ve known since the infamous Dan Rather incident that blogs are a powerful media and in this specific case their influence resulted in the firing of Dan Rather. However, I was surprised to see Kline reference them with such high regard. I was not aware their power and influence has grown over the past several years.
The fact that newspaper circulation is decreasing is no new phenomena. But that does not mean people are not getting the news through another outlet. In these days of fast paced life and the “I want what I want now” attitude of many young people, no one has time to sit down and actually read the newspaper anymore. It is much easier to go to a website, read the bullet points at the top of the story and get a general idea of what is going on, then continue with your day. I did agree that the media outlets have been trying to keep up with bloggers. News people such as Katie Couric have their own blogs, this summer when I interned at CBS in Philadelphia the weathermen and women had their own blogs. That being said, they are still members of the “biased” media and if people don’t trust the news, why would they trust a blog written by people who write about the news? I personally think it is very silly to abandon mainstream news media outlets for personal blogs where it is completely, 100% biased. Bloggers talk about what they want to talk about; they aren’t grappling with whether or not what they’re saying is ethical, truthful, etc. And they rely on the mainstream news, as Kline said, to get their news that they blog on.
Take Perez Hilton for example, he blogs about celebrities all day long. He chooses who he wants to talk about, and whether or not he likes someone has a huge impact on the people who read his site. He’s had such an impact that he’s been given his own show on VH1 and appears on The View. But what he does and says is always biased.
I think as a journalist it is impossible to ignore blogs because they do have a significant impact on people. But giving to much credit to them adds to the power and significance they already have. It’s like the bully in school, you can react to him/her and continued to get bullied but if you ignore them they eventually move on and leave you alone.
3 comments:
Kates-
I like your use of analogies of the impact that blogs are having on the media and news sources.
Your opinions are clear throughout your writing. I wish you had incorporated more of what you read and your reaction to Burstein and Kline's comments.
Brenda
I think this is very well written blog. You do a nice job of reporting what you read about as well as your opinion on the matter. MY favorite part was when you discussed how blogs are no less bias than regular news outlets. This is a very true point that I think a lot of people often overlook.
I also like that you talked about your experiences working with CBS. That gives your blog a good amount of credibility.
I might suggest making your paragraphs a little shorter next time. Good job though
Good post.
Identify the specific text with which you are engaging. Your audience might get confused.
Do break up your paragraphs by double-spacing. And shorter graphs are better (one idea per graph).
I'm confused about one thing. you write:
"The fact that newspaper circulation is decreasing is no new phenomena. But that does not mean people are not getting the news through another outlet."
But then you cite that young people are getting news from Web sites.
So, my confusion is based on two points:
A) Historically young people have NEVER been significant readers of newspapers, so I'm not sure why their behavior would tell us much about the declining newspaper.
B) Are you suggesting that Web sites/blogs are or are not media outlets? Because it sounds like you ARE suggesting that young people get their news from media outlets that are faster to consume (which undermines your claim to the contrary). I guess my real question is how you think Web sites relate to blogs. Are they the same? Different? Why or why not?
"The fact that newspaper circulation is decreasing is no new phenomena." Maybe "not a new phenomenon"?
"I’ve known since the infamous Dan Rather incident that blogs are a powerful media" - The singular is "medium."
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