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NewsBlogs
From a Diary to a News Portal: Pros and Cons
No one would have ever thought that one day diaries will become equally informative as newspapers. But, actually they are and they are also more topical! I will explain how this is possible:
Let’s Start with the Good Old Newspapers
When the first newspapers spread, they were simple messages of current events, like political issues, economic interests, war etc. Newspapers have been printed on paper since the early 17th century and are still very popular. The static presentation of news and messages is one of the major problems of newspapers. They cannot react on sudden changes during events, like in a war or in an election campaign. So we note that there is a certain delay, mostly one day between two issues, which is almost impossible to avoid. Or, let’s say, it was impossible.
Beginning of the Web Evolution
Many people would say that the Internet is one of the most influential inventions since the first electrical bulb began to glow. In the beginning it was also pretty static for the common user who wanted to visit, for example, the homepage of Greenpeace. They couldn’t do much more than just simply stare at the pictures and/or read the comments, written by the owner or administrator of the page. It was also very expensive and complicated to set up his own homepage.
But in the middle of the 1990’s there were tiny little pages, called “online-diaries”. These pages were the stepping stone for a mountainous movement:
More and more people thought about presenting their own lives on the internet by periodical entries on their “diary”. The logical consequence of this movement was to offer a service which allows everyone on the world to create an own blog in less than 5 minutes. It was the beginning of Web 2.0.
Presenting your “daily” life online was a new aspect of the Internet. Almost at the same time new services were created, like Wikipedia or bulletin boards. These forms of interacting with other people over the Internet, participating in discussions or adding information to the Internet encyclopaedia was a new way of using the Internet.
Anywhere, anytime.
Therefore, blogs can be written from all over the world, while you have a short stay in
From a Diary to a News Portal
Anyone of us wants to know any change in one of our personal fields of interest. Be it soccer, political issues, war or “how much gasoline does my gas-guzzler actually need while driving 45 miles per hour”? Today, the immediate receipt of new information is one of our urgent needs. Newspapers have only a limited ability to satisfy them. Blogs do not have this limitation.
The only thing you need is a computer and a connection to the Internet and, except from Third World Countries, you can go online from almost every country on the globe. As we have explored, blogs are one of the most versatile, fastest and most comfortable devices to spread information on the Internet.
Talking Points Memo (TPM) will be the main example during this discourse, as they have several interesting aspects regarding the development of a blog and those of a news portal. TPM is a blog which focuses on political issues like the elections in the
How Do Messages Appear on TPM?
- Messages and News appear like posts in a bulletin board, i.e. the latest entry is always on the top of the page
- There are videos, graphics and images included in some posts
- The author signs his entry
The combination of text and video is a new way of interactivity within one medium. Another interesting point is that the authors sign their entries with their names. This means that the author is liable for his posts. But different to newspapers, not everyone at TPM is a trained journalist, which costs some kind of reliability. But they are introduced on the homepage and Eric Kleefeld even has his own biography.
Another feature of this news portal is that everyone can join in and add comments to specific posts. It is more an attribute of a bulletin board than of a blog, but through this feature anyone can present his or her own ideas. Mark Poster called this a “public sphere”.
Why Is TPM Always Up to Date?
TPM can gather its information from every possible source:
- Radio
- TV
- Internet
- Newspapers
- Mouth-to-Mouth
- Interviews
- Community
As you can see, they have many sources from which they can collect information and data. But as diverse these sources are, some of them are extremely weak. And this is the problem with Web 2.0. Everyone can put his own ideas and own information online. Faked or true. So you can never be sure whether your information is true or not. And this is also a problem for TPM. If there is a faked or simply a wrong statement on their page, they lose some of their reputation. But they are also able to correct their statements immediately after they have learned that something is wrong with them. You have to be careful with the data you present on your page. So newsblogs are often criticized to do no “real” journalism, but simply gather pieces of information.
The Internet contains a lot of information and it does not need a huge amount of time to gather news. They do not have to be printed and can be proof-read within a few seconds.
This is the big advantage of blogs, they delete the delay of newspaper issues!
The community is also a very important part of TPM, as they can make the authors aware of some news they have not seen yet, or correct them, by writing a comment beneath their posts.
Summary
The development from a diary to a newsblog brought many advantages:
- Up to date news
- Fast response
- It can be read from all over the world
- It is for free
- It combines various media
- No delay
- Community
But there are of course many disadvantages which come along with a newsblog:
- Unreliability
- Often untrained journalists
- Weak sources of information
- No “real” journalism
As we can see, newsblogs have got their advantages, especially the time management is much faster than at a newspaper. But on the other hand, they lose a lot of reliability with the usage of weak sources.
It is a question of personal favours:
- Do you prefer fast and immediate news? Check out the newsblogs on the net!
- Do you prefer solid journalism and reliability? Get yourself a newspaper!
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
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