There’s a hotly debated gray area that lies between journalism and blogging. Just about anyone can make his or her writing available to a HUGE audience with the mere click of a button, and the potential for any of us to have an audience interested in what we provide online is ginormous. But in today’s rapidly expanding electronic age where demographic trending is that people get their news and information online, the drive for readership is extremely competitive.
When it comes to online news — it seems stories must be more dramatic, and journalists must dig deeper and reach farther than ever before to captive their audience. Journalists have to rush to scoop the “big story” before bloggers post it. And before it gets Tweeted. And before it’s posted on Facebook. And if that’s not enough, they have to write it in a manner that makes for better reading — which often translates to including more gritty “facts” to keep their reader base engaged.
It appears to me as if our local paper, The Crothersville Times, is the only news source that remains constant and hasn’t stooped to scoop. So, I think I’m going to turn this site into an online rag for the ville. Start posting gossipy stuff instead of simple random thoughts and photos and information about my two fat hounds. I’ll hide around town with my camera and take pictures of embarrassing situations (I’m thinking the beauty shop would be an awesome place to start — once I find out when my buddy Alisa is getting foiled), and post them with captions that are true (of course, “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” <---- according to The Elements of Journalism , written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel), but really, really saucy. Banner ads are sure to appear, and popups will soon follow. I’ll set up interviews and make folks afraid of what I’ll post if they refuse to talk to me. I’m getting goose bumps just thinking about how much fun this will be!!
In the meantime, here’s what happens when you’re writing a post in the dark on a MAC and accidentally hit a button that opens a program that starts making your whole monitor (all 27 inches of it) flash like a light box taking 4 images one after another.
