You wouldn't find this in a newspaper...

res.dallasnews.com/mobile-alerts

The 2011 State of the News Media overview is saying that newspapers are no long the main source of news, but who didn't think that this was going to happen.  The increase in online social networking sites should have been everyone's clue that the Internet was going to be the main source for news in today's society.  As well as the introduction of any kind of smartphone that the population could ask for.

Online media's audience went up 17.1 percent while all other ways of getting the news went down.  I am a news major and even I know that newspapers are going out of style.  It is bad for newspapers, even though people will still be picking up newspapers but that number will decrease by a good amount.  I personally don't have a problem with the change in news and how people are getting it.

In the special report on mobile it says that local news are going mobile.  Nearly half of all American adults report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphones or tablet computers.  I think that it is easier to find information online through phones and tablet computers because it is handy and is easier to get a hold of.  It is easier to connect with news from all around the world especially with issues like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  If we didn't have the tools to get news from an online source the majority of the population would not know about what happened.

The technological future is upon us, it is changing everything hopefully for the better.  For all you anti-social media people, you better get over it and join the rest of the world; because time is of the essence and it is about time everyone is on the same level.

Is your page effective?

(Image via LogoPond.com)

The Invisible Children is a non-profit organization which through hundreds of volunteers and students, aid is brought to Northern Uganda in hopes of ending the longest running war in Africa. Invisible Children fights to end a genocide of people, while also trying to create a better world.

It seems that Invisible Children does use their Facebook page effectively. In the information section, the page has the founded, about, company overview, mission and websites sections filled out and it seems that they did it effectively. There are a lot of pictures on the organization's Facebook page, many of them are the logo but there are also pictures of people around the world who are doing something to support the organization. The wall posts consist of people commenting about how the Invisible Children organization came to their school's to talk about the organization.

To make this page better, I think that the organization should add events to the page. Maybe try showing where they are going to travel to to talk about what they are all about and what they are doing for the world.  I think that people spend time on this page because they want to learn more about the organization as well as looking through photos and watching videos to see what people around the world have done with this organization.  There are about 340,00 likes on this organization's Facebook page, the wall is updated every couple hours or so.

Is social media affecting the youth of tomorrow?

Social media is an important part of today's society.  It seems that everywhere you look someone is either on Facebook, Twitter or even checking/sending emails.  Are these social media tools sucking people into them? Trying to keep them on for hours on end?  No, I don't think that the tools are keeping people there.  The people who obsess over these tools are the ones who are going to be addicted to them. I agree that the girl on Facebook, who committed suicide, with the thousands of "friends" is tragic, but did Facebook cause her to commit suicide? I am pretty sure people have been taunting mentally ill people throughout the the world before Facebook was even thought up.

The majority of my friends and people that I know are on Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with their friends who don't live close, but I am pretty sure that none of them are constantly on those tools updating their lives one minute at a time.  There would be no need for that, and it would mean that they devote all of their time to social media.  There is no need for that.

I think that everyone is very connected through social media tools.  Are we too connected?  That would have to be answered by those who never log out of these tools.  There are a lot of people who think that using social media tools is a must for today's society and I agree with that but there is no need to constantly be on them.  These tools are very good at distracting people from the real world and living their real lives.  I think that it is important for people to be able to disconnect themselves from the social media world.  If that is not possible for people, everyone is going to have a problem with getting back to their own lives outside of the internet and will not completely understand why other people don't get what they are talking about.

Who Am I? Who Am I? Let's Find Out.

In 1962, Clare Boothe Luce, one of the first women to serve in the U.S. Congress, offered some advice to President John F. Kennedy.  “A great man,” she told him, “is one sentence.”  Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.”  Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.”  Luce feared that Kennedy’s attention was so splintered among different priorities that his sentence risked becoming a muddled paragraph.  (from Daniel Pink's latest book "Drive")

When we were shown Pink's video, I didn't know what to think of it.  Could it be possible to have only one sentence to summarize your life?  Only one sentence to show what the purpose is in my everyday life.


So…what do you think your sentence would be? 


Let's try and think about it like this.  What do you want people to say about you when its your time pass on?  If they could only do it in just one sentence, what would you want them to say?  How about a couple heart warming words thrown together to describe who you were?  Would you like that?  Probably not, what would YOU want that sentence to say about you? 

Would you want it to describe your accomplishments in life?  The type of person you were, if people actually took the time to get to know you?  How you treated those closest to you as well as those who weren't?  What you did to change the world around you for the better?  What would you want that one sentence to describe?


It's a tough thing to think about huh?  You only get one sentence to explain who you are...

So once again...what’s my sentence?

My Sentence is:

"I am an ambitious person who, when all else fails, knows that I will

succeed at changing the minds of those who doubted me."

Being a better journalist and financial difficulties

My area of interest is the News part of Journalism.  It is something that I am most interested in because I think that everyone needs to to get the news, no matter how they get it.  Reading blogs is not only a way for people to share their opinions and thoughts about everything, but it is also a great way to get news about anything related to journalism.  It is kind of cool actually.

The two blogs that I read were Ricochet by Chrys Wu and Eat Sleep Publish: thoughts on the future of publishing by Jason Preston.  In the first blog by Chrys Wu, I saw a pretty cool time lapse video of snow build up on a picnic table.  It became a internet sensation on December 30th, it has received over 2.5 million views so far and that number continues to grow.  This time lapse video was important in this post because it shows that even though putting a video like this on your blog is cool and all it isn't a solid way to get views for your own personal blog.  Photographer Chase Jarvis is credited with saying, "the best camera is the one that you have with you."  There is also a a tutorial for how to not let weather ruin a time lapse video that you can make.  Another blog post that I read about was one about how to become a better journalist.  An important part of being a journalist is leaving room for yourself to improve your craft.  The approach that was used was pretty good, the posts that I read through started by the author talking about his personal life and a story of some sort to lead into the topic of the post.  I really liked the picture that came with the post, it shows that you are never too young or old to learn something new.


The other blog that I read was Eat Sleep Publish: thoughts on the future of publishing by Jason Preston.  This blog talked a lot about how autocorrect can change the entire meaning of something as it did for the American Airlines tweet, saying that it was going to send doctors to haiti but actually didn't mean that at all.  But the post that caught my eye more than the rest was one about newspaper circulation.  The chart in the post showed how The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Daily News, The New York Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal newspaper circulation has decreased drastically over the last 20 years of their existence.  Though all of the newspapers have stayed above 400,000 it still looks like they are going to decline in the years to come.  There were some other posts talking about what the author thought about publishing in previous years and then again what they did in today's society.  


None of the blog posts that  I read had any labels which was kind of weird to me, because you would think that there would need to be at least a couple labels so people know what they author is talking about.  But to me, I think that both authors did a good job at getting to the point in each post so that they wouldn't need labels to help the reader.

Time to Wrap it Up

After being in Feature Writing I would like to think of myself as somewhat of a good writer.  I know that I am not as good as the others in my class, because believe me, some of them know what people want to read about and how to get their attention.  I have learned a lot of the last couple of months, we learned how to use blogs in different ways, how to make videos and different ways that we can use our journalistic abilities, as well as the Madagascar Penguin Silly Bandz (by far my favorite part). 

Throughout this semester, I really have enjoyed growing as a writer. I think that my writing has improved and it has become a lot less hard to write articles. I have learned a lot of things about certain questions to ask during an interview and how to react to interviewee’s answers.  I have come to understand what is needed to catch the readers attention and how to keep it for articles that I write. 

I know that what I have learned over the past semester will be taken with me wherever I go in life.  Even though we were in a class that was serious about learning new ways to write for articles, we also laughed a lot and had a good time.  I feel like those couple hours that we were with each other on Tuesdays and Thursday were good for everyone.  Laughing is good for the soul and we did plenty of that for everyone in that building.  I really enjoyed being in that class, and especially all the great people I met in the process.

Is Craigslist Safe?

Everyone thought that Craigslist was going to the new way to buy, sell and even trade people's stuff.  I even thought that it was going to be a great way to do all of that stuff.  I mean you can find people in your city who may be close to you and you can contact them to go pick up something from their house.  That is about the only problem I have had with Craigslist, you have to go to some random person's house to get something that you want, and you don't know if the something you are going to get is what the description says on the website. 


There are people trying to find jobs, housing, friendship, or products and services will find Craigslist to be a very useful community.  On top of that you could also meet other people to network or talk about issues that you think are important. You have to keep in mind that Craigslist is an online community so the risk of predators or scam artist are ready to take advantage of you as soon as you get on the site.  It is important to only go to someones hose if you trust them and trust that they aren't going to try to screw you over.

According to the Craigslist about page on the website:

The overwhelming majority of craigslist users are trustworthy and well-intentioned.

 

With billions of human interactions facilitated through craigslist, the incidence of violent crime has been extremely low.

 

Nevertheless, it's very important to take the same common sense precautions online as you would offline.

 

When meeting someone for the first time, please remember to:

• Insist on a public meeting place like a cafe
• Do not meet in a secluded place, or invite strangers into your home  
• Be especially careful when buying/selling high value items
• Tell a friend or family member where you're going
• Take your cell phone along if you have one
• Consider having a friend accompany you
• Trust your instincts

Taking these simple precautions helps make craigslist safer for everyone.