Maybe this is a little bit self effacing and biased because I work for the student newspaper here, but I wanted to point out something that shows the importance of online media at a student level. Yesterday, The GW Hatchet broke the news that GW has chosen a new president to replace Trachtenberg when he retires this spring. It was probably the best use and design (and the biggest story for the paper since Trachtenberg announced he was retiring after 18 years as president) of The Hatchet's Web site I've ever seen and was really impressed.
The Hatchet's site shows that it can compete on a professional level with the rest of online news -- it's big headline giving the story prominence, the graphic behind the text, the links to other stories about the presidential search and the photo slide show of Trachtenberg's reign was a completely multimedia approach to the biggest story this semester.
Also, it should recognized that The Hatchet scooped all other media outlets on this story and even today's Washington Post story on the new president selection mentioned that GW's student newspaper was the first to report the story. In an e-mail to the staff last night from Hatchet Editor in Chief Caitlin Carroll, she said, "(GW media relations director) Tracy Schario called me tonight and said congratulations on our reporting job. She also said that she's received calls tonight from some other publications, including the Washington Business Journal, who said they can't believe they got scooped by a student paper...."
I also think it's important to point out that for The Hatchet, having a great Web presence on this story is essential. The student newspaper only prints twice a week (Monday and Thursday) and the story broke Monday afternoon, meaning it won't be in the print version until three days later. I just thought it was worth it to point out that even at GW the advancement of online news is having an effect.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Huffington Post: what other bloggers think?
I've been scouring the net to try and find some passionate, angry reaction typical of the blogosphere to last week's news that the Huffington Post will start hiring reporters and paying them, much like the traditional media does. I automatically thought that the blogosphere would be in an uproar over this - the overall tone of blogs is anti-MSM and they see themselves as more transparent, democratic, etc. But so far all I've found are shockingly positive responses from the head honchos:
Jeff Jarvis, creator of Buzzmachine, a respected blog that covers media developments, sees this as a good step for the blogosphere and says, "It’s the next step for HuffPo and the blogosphere, to add more original reporting as it becomes worthwhile to do so. And it’s the next step for more and more institutional journalists to venture into the future," he wrote. He clearly thinks it's good that more traditional journalists are moving to alternative media, and points to the Washington Post's political editor John Harris and top political correspondent Jim VandeHei moving to jump start the online publication The Capitol Leader. He points out one more important thing: "Note, too, that it will soon be more difficult to tell the difference between old and new, as blogs and reporting and reporters blog. It’s all news." Is this blurring of the line a good thing? Jarvis doesn't explicitly say, but he seems to think so.
In Matthew Ingram's blog, he support's HuffPo's move as well, but doesn't mention what this means for the blogosphere. Ingram seems to think that the HuffPo is transforming traditional journalism, when it seems to me that it's actually the opposite. "In my view, newspapers had better get their running shoes on, because online media like Huffington Post and PaidContent are already halfway down the track," he writes.
The IP Democracy blog poses: "Which raises an interesting question about the difference between blogs staffed by top-notch journalists and newspapers staffed by top-notch journalists. The question is: what’s the distinction between those two? The Huffington Post’s decision to hire “real” journalists only further blurs the boundaries between newspapers and blogs..." but he doesn't answer it, which was what I was looking for.
One of Buzzmachine's commentors from Brooklyn Kitchen has the sort of reaction I expected: "That said, it’s hard for me to believe the hype about how new media will revolutionize the way news is produced and distributed, when it very quickly falls into line with the same-old-shit that we’ve always known. The new editor coming as she does from established media sources, is hardly a HuffPo challenge to old media, it’s more of a capitulation." With this Huffington Post news it does seem that the blogosphere is just following the mainstream, when their goal was to fight against it.
Surprisingly the reaction among most bloggers was to report the news of the Huffington Post jumping ship into traditional journalism, but not delve deeper into it. Maybe they are posing questions and not following up with it because no one really knows the answer. It will be interesting to see how this all works out and if other blogs following in HuffPo's footsteps.
Jeff Jarvis, creator of Buzzmachine, a respected blog that covers media developments, sees this as a good step for the blogosphere and says, "It’s the next step for HuffPo and the blogosphere, to add more original reporting as it becomes worthwhile to do so. And it’s the next step for more and more institutional journalists to venture into the future," he wrote. He clearly thinks it's good that more traditional journalists are moving to alternative media, and points to the Washington Post's political editor John Harris and top political correspondent Jim VandeHei moving to jump start the online publication The Capitol Leader. He points out one more important thing: "Note, too, that it will soon be more difficult to tell the difference between old and new, as blogs and reporting and reporters blog. It’s all news." Is this blurring of the line a good thing? Jarvis doesn't explicitly say, but he seems to think so.
In Matthew Ingram's blog, he support's HuffPo's move as well, but doesn't mention what this means for the blogosphere. Ingram seems to think that the HuffPo is transforming traditional journalism, when it seems to me that it's actually the opposite. "In my view, newspapers had better get their running shoes on, because online media like Huffington Post and PaidContent are already halfway down the track," he writes.
The IP Democracy blog poses: "Which raises an interesting question about the difference between blogs staffed by top-notch journalists and newspapers staffed by top-notch journalists. The question is: what’s the distinction between those two? The Huffington Post’s decision to hire “real” journalists only further blurs the boundaries between newspapers and blogs..." but he doesn't answer it, which was what I was looking for.
One of Buzzmachine's commentors from Brooklyn Kitchen has the sort of reaction I expected: "That said, it’s hard for me to believe the hype about how new media will revolutionize the way news is produced and distributed, when it very quickly falls into line with the same-old-shit that we’ve always known. The new editor coming as she does from established media sources, is hardly a HuffPo challenge to old media, it’s more of a capitulation." With this Huffington Post news it does seem that the blogosphere is just following the mainstream, when their goal was to fight against it.
Surprisingly the reaction among most bloggers was to report the news of the Huffington Post jumping ship into traditional journalism, but not delve deeper into it. Maybe they are posing questions and not following up with it because no one really knows the answer. It will be interesting to see how this all works out and if other blogs following in HuffPo's footsteps.
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