Education of the Future?

The Missouri School of Journalism recently made news when it announced it is requiring all incoming students to the journalism program to purchase an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Schools across the nation have been encouraging students to purchase the newest and best technology for years, but this is one school that has made the recommendation a requirement.


As a journalism student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, I have mixed feelings about the Missouri school's decision. I myself am an iPod Touch owner and user and absolutely love having the Internet and video at my fingertips, but I have rarely used my iPod for anything remotely journalistic.


I check my email, check social networks, play games and watch episodes of my favorite shows, but when I want my daily news fix I find a computer.


Checking news websites is still much easier on a full sized computer screen rather than on a handheld device. This is mostly due to the journalism industry's slow transition into the hand-held age.


There are few news organizations that have specific apps set up for the iPod (one notable exception being the New York Times) so users are stuck viewing pages meant for full-screen on a their 3-inch mini-screens.


I can honestly say that this is a less than desirable way to view the days headlines.


If the school is planning to use the iPods primarily for class purposes such as transmitting Podcasts or posting the syllabus, then perhaps this is a good idea, but yet again a computer would be sufficient.


In my own opinion, until the journalistic industry as a whole catches up to technology, iPods will be yet another distraction for students as they sit in their desks.

Blogs: For everyone, by anyone, about anything

Blogs have flourished and grown into a powerful new medium in the past decade. The purposes of these online writing platforms are wide and varied, just like their intended audiences.

There are blogs for gossip, news and music; cats, knitting and cars. There is a platform for any niche and every interest.

So how do we wade through the text? How does a blog gain an audience and how does the audience find the blog? In order to investigate this, I will analyze a specific blog for its tone, function and content.

The transit department in Miami created a blog which reaches out to Florida residents about matters that apply directly to the area or random facts that may be of interest.

Miami residents are encouraged to interact and contribute to the website in order to better serve the community. The transit department posts information about construction sites or damaged roads that may impact commuters. The community can help by keeping the transit department up to speed with recent events.

The blog is arranged in a manner similar to many news sites with simple, straightforward headlines, numerous images and concise body copy. This makes the blog appear more reliable and more accessible to Web surfers.

The difference between this blog and actual new sites it the tone of the writing. This is a more informal writing style, yet still provides the information the public needs. I think the conversational tone in the blog is one major reason why this presentation would be more successful than a straight news site.

For information that is helpful, but not extraordinarily vital, a more conversational tone can attract more eyes.

This is just one example of the millions of blogs created everyday. Tomorrow will bring another million or so new options, but only the most interesting, most accessible and most updated blogs will thrive in the digital world.

Need for speed

Ask a Baby Boomer what he remembers about his childhood and generally you will hear a long rant about how life was slower “back in his day”, slower and easier. Now, this may sound like a cliché, but perhaps there is something there. Today everything is built for speed: drive thru restaurants, self-checkout lines, online news.

Young people today (myself included) are obsessed with doing things fast and knowing things first. This is especially true when it comes to the news. Though the type of news that is important to my generation may not resemble the interests of my grandparents, or parents for that matter, I want the information and I want it five minutes ago.

This need for speed is one reason that innovations such as RSS feeds and Twitter have become so popular in the

last few years. Subscribers of these technologies are able to have information streamed to them every minut

e of every day. The information is hand picked and send to mobile devices in a flash.

So what is the problem? If young people today are consuming news thats a good thing right? What could possibly be the harm?

The problem is while the information is disseminated faster, it is also becoming less reliable. The old standards of truth and accuracy have been pushed aside and replaced with speed and novelty.

It may not be a problem when the incorrect information is merely a piece of gossip such as when a blogger broke the story of Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite and other news media followed suit, but what if the information was of dire consequence?

The news of Michael Jackson’s death broke on Twitter initially and spread through social networking sites like wildfire, so is it possible a serious (but false) story could also spread and cause widespread panic? I think it is.

With the emphasis now on fast reporting rather than accurate reporting, I think the audience of the Internet age will likely consume more media, but less truth. This is a crisis of the traditional journalism ethics and should be taken under consideration.

Truth, accuracy and fair reporting should be fundamental steps to any good journalism, with speed and flare just behind. Legitimate news media need to take a step back and realize that the public may want the story now, but they need the story straight.