Jan. 28 Readings

(Just a basic overview of thoughts for all six readings)
I think the first article does a good job of illustrating what a journalist has become: the all-encompassing backpack-reporter. However, I think that it's rare for people to criticize this. While the idea of a journalist that can write, record, and edit all in one day is great, I also think it has become romanticized. How is a reporter that gets paid nothing supposed to even afford all of the equipment that we are supposed to own and master? On the other side of this, though, is the bright side of technology where news can break on a blog and be seen by millions by the end of the day.
Mark Briggs makes a good point about news without an audience. If you have a story, but no one to tell, what makes it news? I think that the "news as conversation" aspect is very important. To me, it means that news is nothing without someone to have that conversation with. This also takes into account one's audience, like how Vahlberg describes different demographics and their treatment of news sites. It is safe to understand why each generation won't use certain tools on the web for a news site in order to understand which you should be using. I do think that it is often unavoidable to fall into the "too much" on a site problem. So many organizations are trying to experiment with new technology that there is a lot going on. Once certain ideas get ignored or dismissed, however, I hope they will take the hint and do away with them.
The CEO of GE's quote (“This is not a time to skimp on resources but to focus them on your best businesses: stop the weakest, invest in the strongest.”) is what sums it up most accurately. The biggest fault of news corporations today is keeping on technology and ideas that no longer work. My favorite example of this is Twitter. People tried so hard to find good uses for it, and still are, but most younger journalists have left it behind because it just doesn't work. (Even though one of the article's authors, Katie King, still uses it.)
The last article makes a small but important point by saying that one step with new technology is learning how to use these tools. Without knowing what is possible, how can we say we are doing everything we can? So many editors rely on interns or news reporters to use the technology and look past the other possibilities for it.

How I would use this information:
I think that people marvel at technology often without trying to apply its uses to journalism in new ways. For example, when the president breaks news on his blog, like the article suggests, why aren't newsrooms across the country trying to link to it no their homepage immediately or get a live video feed?
Briggs' point about newsworthy conversation should be used to show that news organizations should understand their readers. With this I do not mean demographics or numbers, I mean that editors should know not only what readers want to know, but what they should know. So instead of assuming readers won't want or use something on a news site, it may be worth a little bit of effort to understand the reader first.
I'm surprised that more people don't take Vahlberg's advice and pay more attention to age groups. I would think that more news organizations would make entire sites dedicated to news revolving around the 18-30 demographic or something similar.
The best advice I read in this was to keep in mind how people see your site. Often there is too much clutter, but design and color and even small considerations like font are all editing decisions that should be carefully thought out.
For any news publication I founded, I would take this advice most seriously. Often, first impression (front page) is what sticks. If people like the front page, they may read more. I would try to keep it simple and think out the design specifically for my reader group.