Random Tidbits

After reading the Poynter Online E- Media Tidbits I definitely saw a really cool side of journalism. The author of the story said that the best thing about syndicating content via an RSS feed is that you never know what will happen to it. I thought this was pretty interesting because once journalists delivers the news, which is their job, it's pretty telling to see what the public does next. If one syndicator has enough power to bring whole communities together simply by linking people with similar interests, thats cool journalism.

The Power of a Blog entry was really fascinating too because last year I read a Google text with Prof. Williams and we learned the value of categorizing the search engine to determine which links show up first on the results page. Like this example, it is evident Google has a lot of power in what they do because they can ruin someone's reputation or job for that matter with their search engine! I never really thought about the impact Google had on the lives of people but it can make or break a company, an organization or a person's life by revealing damaging material or perhaps demoting companies further down the list which only hurts the company's sales by decreasing the viewers!!!

Another random tidbit I learned was how using a timeline can affectively tell a story and improve the ease of developing and reading online journalism. In today's society it is crucial to make things quick, and easy and online journalism is making news easier to read with each passing day. The time line package example was really neat to see how journalism comes in many different forms, not just long passsages of words. Clearly, I could "read" a story by looking at the timeline, and although this is relatively new and innovative it is exciting for journalists and readers alike to see what the future brings to help present the news more effectively.

Finally the best advice I got was from Chapter 4 In Their Own Words. As a reporter you never know whats going to be quoteworthy until you actually develop an ear to search for it and seek it out. After that it becomes easy. After a lot of practice I feel I will be able to devlop my skills and in the end ultimately improve my story.

Direct quotes really add color, make a story come alive, and give stories a breath of fresh air to break up a lot of text. While these are all good things, a bad quote has the potential to ruin a story by making it unclear, dull, or just stupid. Therefore I think its crucial to understand when to summarize, when to use partial quotes or direct quotes and how to properly attribute - once you got that down, its safe to say your story will come alive.

In general I learned to follow these guidelines: use direct quotes when something is unique, someone says something uniquely, or someone important says something important. It should say something significant and meaningful to spice up your story.

One of the most important things is to get the quote exactly word for word. Sometimes this is the scariest thing for me because once someone says something unique they will never say it again. They won't even remember what they said so they can repeat it for you. So basically you get it the first time or you don't get it at all - you gotta be on your feet in this profession !!

Finally, some other tips to remember are to verify and clarify or you basically run the risk of ruining your story by making it false and unclear. Also, it is usually better to paraphrase or to use full quotes rather then confuse your reader with partial quotes. Another thing to keep in mind is that you CAN correct the grammar of a speaker. Last but not least handling information on and off the record can be pretty tricky. Usually you are advised to avoid anonymous sources so as not to damage credibility, risk being sued if you ever have to name that source, and risk the fact that your source may be lying to test the waters.

Although a lot of information appears to be common sense, they are all definitely pieces of advice that are crucial to a story. I'm glad I took notes!