Can Digital Letters to the Editor (the “Comments” section) be Thrown Into the Digital Trashcan?

Hello again, gentle readers (I can’t stop, and I don’t think I even want to).  In today’s post we’ll be taking a look at the comments sections of blogs and news websites (also, in very old news, AP finally changed “Web site” to “website.”  How stoked are all you J-School people? Next on the list, “E-mail” to “email.”  It won’t be long now!).

Let’s start with a little historical review, because, as I learned in History and Principles of Journalism, every new media innovation today has some sort of grounding in a historical journalism practice. This one is not quite historical, but important none-the-less.  Now, since the 1880′s, letters to the editor have been an integral part of newspapers.  They served as a way to express opinions about newspaper articles–mainly editorials–and political issues.  Letters to the editor still serve a purpose in today’s (numbered) print publications.  But, with online publications and digital media on the rise, gentle readers, the news consumers have found a new way to express their opinions.

The “Comments Section.”

Comment sections, threads, discussion boards, and moderated forums are now a virtually instantaneous way of sending and publishing a reaction or opinion (that pun back there was unintentional, I assure you).  These comments sections take the concept of letters to the editor to a new level.  They allow readers, and writers, to engage in discussion and debate about what they’ve read.  Since the comments are viewable by anyone who visits the website [Yes! website! Not Web site! (guess who got an Auto-E for that one? Just guess...)] anyone can react to what other people are saying.  This can be beneficial to journalists who make the most of online media.  Partaking in the conversation taking place on your website (hahaha!), blog, or article allows the writer to learn by bringing their journalism into the conversation through asking questions, challenging ideas, and seeking clarification among other things.  Readers can be a wealth of knowledge that a journalist might not have, they can have stories that need to be added to a piece, and they can bring a different viewpoint to the picture.  That’s what the conversations around the writer’s piece can do.

Unfortunately, gentle readers, as with anything the comment sections have their downsides.  Most of which revolve around the infamous anonymous reviews.  When people can submit things anonymously, there’s a very good chance they’ll take advantage of that and write things and opinions they would never express if people knew who they really were.  This has been an issue on websites for as long as these discussion board-like environments have been in existence.  People post idiotic, hurtful, hateful, racist, and disrespectful things under the guise of anonymity and pseudonymous monkiers.

This is a sad but true fact, gentle readers.

It has even caused some to even shut down the comments section of their sites.  During an interview with Bob Garfield for On the Media, Ira Glass talks about a piece posted to The American Life about a woman and her teenage daughters who ran away.  The comments that were left on the site’s “bulletin board” were horrible attacks on the girls and their mother.  Glass said that eventually they had to take down the bulletin board for that piece because they did not want to create a forum for people to express their “mean-hearted” opinions. “We don’t have to endorse that by giving it a space,” says Glass.

Even though Glass shut down the bulletin board, later in the interview he says, “…you make something, you put it out in the world and you want people to have feelings about it, and the feelings can include, they hate you and that seems okay.”  It seems okay, gentle readers, because people are able to express their opinion about something–even though their opinion might not be that popular.  It’s one of the fundamentals of free speech, and it brings about a problem news organizations face today and will continue to face in the future:  how to handle the comments section.

The solution, gentle readers, may not be a simple one, but one thing major newspapers and media companies might consider is moderating comments like they have letters to the editor.  It’s not encroaching on free speech, because it’s doing what newspapers have done for year: tossing certain responses unfit for print for whatever reason into the trash.

Is this possible in the digital age? Can online publications toss comments into the digital trashcan if it’s not something they would publish in print? What do you think?

Note: I’m currently looking for the link for the interview I mentioned.  I had to read it in Journalism and Technology but now I can’t find it.  Stay tuned for updates in case I do!

Citizen Journalism: Contributing to the News

Hello again, gentle readers (sorry, it’s too funny not to continue using!).  Welcome to the second installment of what is becoming a fast growing, long running commentary on Citizen Journalism.  If you will recall from our last meeting, citizen journalism is when average people with no journalistic training go out and report the news or capture news worthy events with their newfangled camera/video phones and send it to news stations or post it to their own new and social media platforms (this message brought to you today by The MagaBlog, two citizen journalists’ venture into the social media news world! Well, not just two anymore, we have a staff being put together! More on that later…)

In today’s installment, gentle readers, we will be taking a brief look at how citizen journalists and professional journalists can work together to report the news.  With journalists unable to be everywhere to cover everything at every possible minute, citizen journalists are becoming a bigger part of professional journalism than many realize. Content produced by the people formerly known as the audience is making its way to the newspapers, websites, and broadcasts in the form of quotes, pictures, videos, and more. Now then, gentle readers, let us take a look at a case study:  The Hudson River Plane Crash.

The first I heard of the crash was on Twitter, via a twitpic that later became one of the most used images of the crash to be used. The New York Times used it as their front page photo. But, in a story the Hudson River crash, all a Tweet can do is say, “Plan crashed in Hudson River!” or “Holy $#!+ there’s a plane in the Hudson!!!” It does not satisfy human curiosity as to what specifically caused the plane to crash, what passengers’ reactions were, how bystanders reacted when it crashed, what the pilot was experiencing when it landed in the Hudson, etc… These are all things told to readers in a story-telling format found in newspapers or broadcasts from interviews and research done by professional journalists.

Bloggers and Tweeters don’t have the means to talk to city police or the FAA about the crash, both of which are important to a story like the Hudson crash. What tweets and citizen journalist blogs can do is spark readers’ interest about the event, which leads them to searching news sites and watching channels like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, etc… to get more information.

I think that in the future, people will begin to see more of this—citizen and professional journalists working cohesively to keep the world informed.   What about you, gentle readers.  What have you to say on the subject?

Tik-Tok: Trekkie Style

Thank you to Ari Cho for posting this on her blog.   It is definitely re-blog worthy.

Citizen Journalism: An Extremely Brief Historical Review

Hello gentle readers (props to those of you who catch that reference).  As some of you who read this may already know, I’m taking online classes for a summer term this year.  One of those classes is Intro to New Media and, wouldn’t you know it, the topic for the next lecture has to do with Citizen Journalism!

Again, as some of you may already know, this is one of my favorite things to talk about!  And, kind of the only thing I actually paid attention to for the most part in my first semester at the J-School.  At least I learned something, right?  And something else good came of it: The MagaBlog (shameless promotion, shameless promotion, shameless promotion…).

I digress.

Back to the point of this—and there is a point I swear!  The point of this blog post is to combine two of my favorite subjects, journalism and history and write about the historical roots of Citizen Journalism.

“But!” You gentle readers protest.  “You changed your major from journalism to screenwriting!”

Yes.  But that doesn’t mean I don’t like learning about journalism—if that makes sense.  It just isn’t something I want to do for the rest of my life.  But that’s not the point of this post.  The point of this post is the historical roots of Citizen Journalism.  Yes, there are historical roots believe it or not.  Like, very historical.  Important historical roots (in case my friends reading this can’t tell, I’ve had caffeine!).

Let us start with what Citizen Journalism actually is.  According to the website Media Smart it is, “when members of the public engage in journalism.  Examples include providing pictures or film of events to news organizations or reporting events in blogs.”

Pretty straightforward stuff, right?

Right.

Moving on.

A lot of people say that Citizen Journalism started during the 2004 Presidential Elections when people took to the Web and pointed out all the inaccuracies of the mainstream media.  Watchdogs they were called.  Grassroots journalists.  Bloggers.

While it can’t be denied that the whole idea of Citizen Journalism really took off at that time, it didn’t necessarily start there.  It actually started in the 1760s.

“1760s!?” You gentle readers cry.  “But there were no cameras or film or laptops or Internet or camera phones or any other modern marvels that makes Citizen Journalism possible!”

Well, no.  There was however technology of the time: pens, paper, ink, printing presses.  Archaic I know, but believe it or not people used these things back then.  And use them well they did.

If you recall from your American History classes all those years ago, there was a war between the Colonies and The British Empire: The Revolutionary War! Without which we would not be a country today.  Although we might have actual football and chips but that’s neither here nor there.

Moving on.

Part of this great revolution was public involvement—vocal public involvement. This brings us to the historical part of the post, gentle readers.  Because you see, in a time without telephones, the quickest way to spread information was print.  And since the papers at that time were controlled by the Crown, it was considered “seditious libel” to post things against Merry Ol’ England and King George.

The answer?

Pamphlets penned by anonymous authors and printed by Revolutionary press owners under the cover of night.  These pamphlets were then distributed to the masses and used to fuel a rebellion that morphed into the Revolutionary War.  The colonial rebels of the day employed an early form of Citizen Journalism the mainstream media couldn’t (and in loyalist cases, wouldn’t).

Pretty nifty, huh.

And that, gentle readers, brings us to the end of this post, for which some of you are more than likely cheering because, quite honestly, I just read over it and I’m wondering what I’m on.

Oh, wait.  Caffeine.

Whoops.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to glance this over, gentle readers.  Even if the effect was more comedic than informative, I’m happy to entertain.

If I do decide to do another post like this—“Dear God no!” You gentle readers beg. “Please stop torturing us!”—it will probably focus on the historical roots of blogging, because without Thomas Paine, I don’t think the concept would even exist (well, it might, but for all sakes and purposes of my next post, let’s just pretend it wouldn’t, ok?)

That’s all for tonight ladies and gents! Please excuse the caffeine induced insanity.

—Tobie

Real Vampires Don't Sparkle

Question from Plinky (paraphrased): In the seemingly endless war between vampires and werewolves, whose team are you on?

Vampires win hands down, but only if they’re the non-sparkly, Whedonverse type. I’m talking Spike, Angel, Drusilla, Darla…not the Cullens. Real vampires don’t sparkle, period. Besides, as far as vampires with sex appeal go, Spike and Angel win hands down over Edward any day.

If this is in that bizarro Twilight-verse where vampires do impressions of 80′s glam rock disco balls wearing too much pancake, then I’m going to have to say werewolves. They’re cool in any universe. I like Oz from the Whedonverse just as much as (ok, a little more than)
Jacob from the Twilight Saga.

San Diego, 2010

So I took a road trip with my friends this July (cross that off my list! Woo!).  It started out with my friend Eden (remember her? Check her blog out!) inviting me and our friend Xine if we wanted to tag along to this rental place her parents got in La Jolla, CA.  The answer was, quite obviously, a resounding YES!

The place was fantastic.  It was a little beach house maybe 3 blocks away from the actual beach.  It wasn’t terribly big (not many beach houses are), but we’re young and able to sleep on the couches that were there   I don’t think I can even begin to describe the awesomeness that was this vacation.  I can give highlights though!

The Beach

Ah, the wonderful, wonderful beach.  I didn’t have a swimsuit unfortunately but shorts and tank tops worked out rather nicely.  And I didn’t get too terribly burned which was a miracle considering I usually look like a steamed lobster after more than 3o min in the sun (then again, the SPF 50 I was wearing might have something to do with that…).  We even went running on the beach one morning, which was fantastic up until the point where I slipped on some rocks and scraped my knee up (I’m such a klutz).   There was also massive sandcastle building our last day there, which was great because that’s another thing I got to cross off my list!

The Shack

Anyone remember that Nickelodeon cartoon Rocket Power?  There’s a place in that called The Shack, which is like a beachside restaurant/hang-out.  There was one not even a block away from us.  Not joking.  It’s called The Shack and it looked like the one in Rocket Power.  Eden and I were trying to figure out if it was named after the cartoon place, or if the cartoon place was inspired by that.  I’m leaning towards the former.  The place was awesome and they served really good tater-tots.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I ate my weight in tater-tots.  And breakfast burritos.  Those were amazing! The Shack also had flat screen TVs on the patio–where we watched a good portion of the final World Cup games.  More on the World Cup in another post.

The People

It goes without saying that I love both Eden and Xine.  A girl couldn’t ask for better friends–actually, I swear we’re more like sisters now.  Eden’s parents are pretty fantastic too, and so were her cousins who were there for the Fourth.  There was much hilarity involving a pineapple top attached to someone’s head with shoelaces, a ninja impression, and what is quite possible the worst place to eat in La Jolla (Harry’s Coffee Shop)–erm, not all of that happened at once.  Three separate events.  Then there was Eden’s friend Matt who dropped in for a few days and two kids from their high school theatre group who happened to be in the area (small, small world).  No one killed each other and we all got along, so double bonus there!

The World Cup

This really deserves its own post as I have a bit to rant about (France v. Northern Ireland for example.  Stupid French!) but I’ll keep it short, sweet, and to the point where the important bits are concerned.

• Third place game: We’d all been following things closely and were psyched about watching the third place match with Germany (I wanted Germany to win something, just not the Final!).  Eden, Xine and I were walking around the downtown La Jolla area the day of the game, thinking we’d have plenty of time to get back to the house or The Shack (where we watched Germany v. Spain and Uruguay v. Netherlands).  Well, we lost track of time which we didn’t realize until Xine stops in the middle of the sidewalk and cries “World Cup!” and points at this cantina like place where the sounds of cheers and loud noisemakers was coming.  Well, we rush in and grab a table to watch the final minutes of the game (which were brilliant! Edge of my seat the whole time when they were tied!).  It was kinda funny cos we were a small pocket rooting for Germany and practically everyone else in the bar was cheering for Uruguay.  We ordered some drinks, not food, which made us feel kinda bad cos no one was really ordering things in there, just watching the game–so we ended up giving our waiter like a 90% tip haha.  He deserved it though–especially since, as Xine pointed out, he had been rooting for Uruguay, and they lost.
• The Final Game: Eden and her mom were rooting for the Netherlands since Eden’s dad works for a Dutch company and they have Dutch friends.  I was rooting for Spain (FURIA ROJA!!) because, well, I’m part Spaniard; Xine declared herself Switzerland as she did not want to involve herself in the rivalry that was brewing.  Smart girl.  Through the course of the game, words were exchanged, threats were made (I was going to be given gruel for dinner at one point…), and then Spain won and I was in a very good mood.  Thankfully, all friendships stayed intact despite the superiority of my team

Warwick’s Books

There was a bookshop in La Jolla called Warwick’s.  Well, it was books, stationary, gifts, and office supplies but I mostly focused on the books–in fact, I bought three:  Inkheart, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and The Princess Bride. I just have to say that it was probably one of the best book stores I’ve ever been to (Yes, I’m a dork.  No, I don’t care).

Haberdashery

Not only is it a cool word, but there was on in La Jolla that we went to for kicks.  We tried on some hats, got some funny pics, and remarkably didn’t get ourselves thrown out.  There was a Tim Burton’s Mad Hatter hat there that I wanted to try, but it was hanging from the ceiling so that didn’t work out too well.

The Food

Crepes, sea food, soups, wood-fire pizza (didn’t have any but I heard it was good), ice cream, French bakeries…I just made myself really hungry.

The Giant Chess Board

So we went to this really funky little place for breakfast one morning called Panikin’s (I think I spelled that right…I don’t know.)  and they had a GIANT chessboard complete with GIANT chess pieces.  Since I’ve never played chess before (didn’t know how to either–check that off my list too!) it was intriguing to see one that big.  Xine, chess enthusiast, promptly commandeered the board once these girls left (they were just sitting there! not even playing!) and she and Eden taught me how to play.  It was awesome–and there were a lot of Harry Potter/Wizarding Chess jokes because that board and its pieces had more than likely seen better days (one king was so bad no one could really tell it was a king, poor guy).   The final scoring went as follows:  Eden 1 v. Xine 0 and Tobie 0 v. Xine 1.   She beat me in four moves.  FOUR!  No, I’m not bitter, it’s just really impressive.  But considering I had no idea what the hell I was doing I was happy she didn’t beat me in less.

P-P-P-Poker Face

We got bored one night and decided to play poker.  However, we had no money to play with.  Instead, we bet things like tacos, leftovers and tater-tots from the Shack, the bedroom, the Captain’s Chair in the car, and God only knows what else was in there.  I think we may have bet our pillows at one point.  I do know that I won Eden’s toothpaste and wound up owing Xine like 5 tacos from this nearby hole-in-the-wall that was open 24hrs.  Oh, that was another thing! Xine won the right to call Taco Run and make Eden go with her at any time of the day or night to get tacos.   The tacos were never collected upon, but I have a feeling I’m going to be buying them for Xine when we’re all in one central location again.  I think I still owe her coffee too.  Hm.  As for the bedroom, there were 2 bedrooms in the house–one for Eden’s parents and the other for guests and the like.  When no one was staying with us, we put it on a rotation.  Winner got to pick their night(s) in the room.  It was very intense, very high stakes and I wish we had played a couple more hands–even if I was losing.

I think that’s all the major highlights.  I really hope I didn’t leave anything out.  It was a fantastic trip and I’m beyond happy I had the chance to go.  And I’m pretty sure I’m ruined for all other summer vacations after that

All for now, cheers–

Tobie