And The Money Goes To...

Overall I really liked everyone's pitches and saw potential in all of them, but one of them stood out and if I had the money I would be willing to fund it as a working company.

Catwalk to Campus is a really interesting idea and while I'm not a fashion forward type of person, that would not stop me from backing this idea. I think Cady has a good target audience and I liked how she planned on getting her readers involved in the website by submitting their own photos. This is a great way to get free content for your site.

I also liked Cady's idea to have skins for Catwalk to Campus because it's a different way of advertising rather than just having sidebar or banner ads. This website seems like it would and could be heavily based on advertising so I would like to see at least a 3rd year budget and other plans for making a profit because as it is her staff salaries add up to roughly $90,000 but I didn't see a number higher than $7,500 for the revenue. I think Catwalk to Campus could definitely develop an online store in which they sold swag with their own logo.

One thing that should also be considered is instead of Catwalk to Campus starting up at Ithaca College, have it begin in a bigger city like New York or Los Angeles. I think if it began in a bigger market it would be easier to get it going and then open it to the smaller markets.

I think this is a great idea, and I definitely see it as a working brand.

Don't Break Your Bank

My pitch for Don't Break Your Bank.

Public Television is Surprisingly Not That Public

When I think of public television, the first thing I think of is PBS. PBS is a public broadcasting network which is supposed to broadcast shows for the public's interest. When I was little I remember watching "Sesame Street" on PBS or if I was at my grandparent's house it was either "This Old House" or some cooking show with Julia Child. Even at a young age I was able to tell there was something different with PBS compared to NBC or other major networks. The quality of some of the shows was better.

If you think the United States' public television network is great, you are in for a rude awakening.
This graph below compares the U.S.'s funding for public television with 14 other countries and look where the U.S. falls, dead last.

Imagine what public television could do if we our per capita public funding was higher than $3.75.

If that doesn't get you mad, then perhaps knowing that PBS cut out a part of Tina Fey's speech at an award ceremony that contained jokes about Sarah Palin. Check out the video for yourself.

So much for uncensored public media. PBS' excuse that the award ceremony ran too long so they had to cut portions of Fey's speech were ridiculous and like Anderson Cooper said, how convenient that they cut the political portion out of Fey's acceptance speech.

In order to create a better public broadcasting network, we need to start looking at other countries' public network and use them as a starting point. Having only $3.75 go to public broadcasting compared to other countries which rely heavily on public funding is absurd. How can we really still call it the public broadcasting network if it's not funded by the public?

Think Before You Blog

Adam Westbrook's "News Startup Checklist" provided a list of 17 questions to think about when creating a blog.

From Westbrook's list, I pulled out what I think the top 10 are:

Is it a new idea?
If it's not than what makes your idea different from other similar sites that are out there.

Does it have a defined target audience?
It will be easier to attract readers if you have a target audience rather than the whole Internet. You'll need to find a way to market your idea to your target audience as well.

Does it provide niche (i.e. hyperlocal) content?
If you start up a hyperlocal news blog, will it be beneficial to the community? If people from the community aren't interested in going online to read news and would rather wait to see it in a weekly newspaper, than chances are you need to rethink your idea.

Does it satisfy a desire that is not being fulfilled by someone else?
Or does it do something better (faster, cheaper, more effectively) than someone else?
Having a similar idea to another site is repetitive and not too mention will be much harder to reach an audience especially if you don't have anything special to offer your audience.

Does it actually have income potential, or will it rely on funding?
Not for profits are good, but if you were planning on having your blog as your source of income, you'll need to think of ways to advertise and create revenue.

If it has content, is it sharable?
This is the number one way of getting your name out there. This way readers can share your links with others, hopefully recruiting new readers.

Does it require a lot of money to run?
As a startup there probably won't be much money coming in for at least the first year, so you'll have to figure out what's necessary. Will you need staff writers, will they be full-time or part-time? The goal is to have more money coming in that goes out.

Is it a legally sound idea? What about copyright?
Legal problems = money problems.

And…does it have a cool name?
Clearly the most important of them all.

EXTRA! EXTRA! Read All About It!

Drudge is known for linking to stories on his site and his occasional original reporting. However, his reporting is not always true.

A good way for a blog to gain popularity is to break news, whether it be true or false, but it's better if there were some facts in the story. Being a blogger and coming across breaking news or something controversial is like hitting a gold mine. Bloggers are able to publish exclusive news at any time of the day keeping them one step ahead of broadcast news. However because these posts may be rushed, facts might not always turn out to be true and once it's published on the web, it's there for good.

The Internet works the same way that television does, if it's online people will believe it to be factual, even if it's outlandish.

Drudge has published these exclusives before, the majority which turn out to be fabricated and yet time and time again people still believe Drudge.

In 1999, Drudge claimed to have a "world exclusive" about a woman who said Bill Clinton was the father of her child. Right off the bat, anyone with half a brain should have questioned this so-called confession. This was the first time anyone was hearing about this woman, so how could the video be a confession? Also where was this video that Drudge apparently viewed? If you missed the confession part and continued reading, you would see that his source was Star Magazine, a publication which says they are the "No. 1 for Celebrity News" (though it is more gossip than actually news).

Nonetheless, throughout the whole post, Drudge never once cited another website or publication that had the information he had or anything else relevant to this crazy claim.

This hasn't been the only time Drudge fabricated stories either. ThinkProgress recently put together a list of ten stories about Obama that Drudge made up. What motivates Drudge to create these false claims? Does he feel threatened by other bloggers that by breaking these stories, he hopes to gain more readers?

The bottom line is if and when you break news on your blog, cite other reputable sources and link back to other stories that may be relevant and help to back your claim. Being credible and factual should be more important than obtaining a couple more hits on your site for an hour or two.

So You Wannabe A Blogger?

On WordPress there are over 58 million registered blogs, Tumblr has 77 million users and it is estimated there is a total of over 172 million blogs online at this moment. Anyone can create a blog as long as they have an email and an opinion, but what does it take to become a successful blogger?

Jeff Jarvis points out some valuable lessons he learned from an entrepreneurial journalism course. Just like pitching any idea, you need to sell it. Even though you think your startup blog is a wonderful idea, doesn't mean those who will be potential funders will agree.

After you have your brilliant idea (preferably one that has yet to be covered, or a new spin on an old idea), you need think about your target audience. Who will be reading your blog? Will it be teens or will your blog be directed towards an older generation? If possible, it might be a good idea to do a little research because sometimes your target audience may not be all that interested in your idea and without them, you're nothing.

Next, you need to think about your marketing. How will you market your blog? Twitter may be the way to go if your blog is more for teenagers and the 20-somethings, but what about those over 60, how will you reach them? Once you find your target audience, you want to be sure you can reach them. 

Now of course, you'll need to find some content for your blog and make sure it's different from what's already out there. There can only be so many blogs about cute puppies, so make yours different. Jarvis observed in his class that all the students proposed ideas for websites, but no one suggested a business. In the case of blogging as a career you need to have a business plan as well. Take time to research advertising because that will be part of your blog's income. Networking with other blogs will also help you to create relationships with other bloggers who were once like you, a startup. By linking to each other's sites you are giving and receiving free advertising, which can be a very good thing especially if your partners are big name bloggers.

In short, it doesn't take much for anyone to rant and rave online, but do you have what it takes to become the next big blog?

Regulating the Internet

When you think of Internet regulation, the first thing that may come to mind is China's Internet restrictions, but certainly not any type of regulation in the U.S. 

Keeping the Internet "fair" is hard to do, especially when Google and Verizon make plans to better the web. The problem was their plan involved many loopholes that didn't seem to make access to the Internet fair for everyone. 

Over the years Wi-Fi has become popular, but people still use wired connections to go online. In the proposal, those who had a wireless connection would be offered faster Internet speeds in order to access information faster. That is not the only exception. What if Verizon partnered with a company that streamed videos, and only those who used their service were able to access faster streaming? 

Making the big sites load faster will not help, and it certainly will not help with net neutrality. Smaller sites won't be able to function if their page takes more than a minute to load. We live in a time where everyone wants their information immediately. Even waiting 30 seconds for a web page to load is too long. The majority of blogs would not be able to publish daily postings. 

Imagine I had posted some controversial news on this blog, but because of Verizon's idea of net neutrality users weren't able to quickly access my blog so they went to other bigger sites that provided them a one sided story. My one piece of advice for Google and Verizon for the next time they come up with a proposal for net neutrality, "don't be evil."

Live Blogging a War

Blogs and sites like Twitter have made it easier for the public to "live blog" events to let their followers get in on the action. Such events usually include award shows or concerts and just last week, election night. Twitter has also played a big role in international events like the 2009 Iranian presidential elections, however the recent events in Israel have sparked some unexpected live bloggers.

While Israel is fighting back against Hamas on the ground, both sides are also live blogging the event on Twitter. Israel's Defense Forces official Twitter is constantly posting updates for followers all while making jabs at Hamas.

The Hamas account has also been tweeting about missiles they have launched before they strike, which makes everything very interesting. Is either side giving away strategies, or is live tweeting missile strikes a good thing? For one, citizens may get an earlier warning of any missile strike. By live tweeting the events, people from around the world are able to follow what is unfolding. We don't have to rely on the media to show us what is happening on the ground; people who are actually experiencing it are able to give us a glimpse of the action.

Am I Wasting My Money?

We go to school for years to learn the "right way" to ask questions, report and formulate an article that best tells the story, yet there are citizen journalists out there that seem to be doing the same exact thing. Does this make a degree in journalism useless?

Mayhill Fowler never went to school for journalism, yet she contributed often to Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" where she broke two major stories during the previous election. The question is, was the way Fowler obtained her information ethical considering she did not make it known to Bill Clinton when she questioned him about his profile in Vanity Fair? She approached Clinton as an average citizen who happened to be holding a recorder and recorded their conversation. She went on to upload that audio and write an article which created quite the stir in the world of politics.

One problem that often comes up with citizen journalists is their reporting and writing. How are they able to obtain the information they get? Citizens may not always have the connections that journalists have made throughout their career and being a citizen journalist does not guarantee you a press pass to get inside an event. As for the writing, many times they don't have editors which means their writing may not be up to par, facts might not be checked leaving more room for errors. 

Citizen journalism is a tough topic to tackle. Professional journalists do not need to register with any type of agency making it easy for anyone with a computer and an opinion to call themselves a journalist and yet there is no other profession out there that has this issue. One can only hope that come graduation everyone with a degree in journalism is able to find a job in their field.

Everybody is a Critic Online

The Internet is a platform where everyone can make their voice heard, even if no one reads it, spewing out hate or praise all over the Internet can be quite gratifying.

Though Twitter is considered a microblogging site where millions of people share their "professional" opinions with the rest of the Internet. If there's ever a time during a major event when you are curious as to what the people are thinking, check Twitter and you're guaranteed to see at least one trending topic related to it. Last night's presidential election results was no different. The day began with users tweeting about voting and some even posting pictures of their ballots (which in many states is illegal), as the day wore on you came across the occasional tweet about lines being extremely long and mixed in were some tweets supporting Romney or Obama. It was hard to find any newsworthy information unless of course you followed a news account.

By the time the major networks and blogs began their election coverage, Twitter was abuzz. In fact, the results created a new record on Twitter, where users hit a peak of 327,452 tweets per minute, totaling 31 million tweets, making this presidential election results the most tweeted about event.

The point is simple, even if you are just using a microblogging site like Twitter, your voice can and will be heard. The Internet creates the opportunity for everyone to openly express their opinions and who knows that one tweet you send out may be the next big thing everyone is talking about.

Too Good for Google News?

Matthew Lee, a small-time blogger when compared to other websites such as Democracy Now, is a perfect example of a blog gaining super popularity. In fact, Matthew Lee's Inner City Press became so popular and controversial that Google News had to take it off of its list of legitimate news sources. One question I came up with after scrolling through the site was, how could something so displeasing to the eye be considered a threat?

Lee began focusing on internal issues related to the UN since 2005 and has uncovered some eye-opening details about the United Nations. Lee had been writing about the UN for two years, three to four stories a day when suddenly he received a letter from Google stating they would no longer be able to post his articles on Google News. Lee firmly believes this is because Google teamed the UN and was told to get rid of him. There is also the possibility that someone sent Google an email stating that Lee's site was a one-man-band blog and because of that he was violating Google's rules that all news organizations that were on Google News must have at least two employees.

What difference does it make if one man reports the news, compared to two people?

Who Exactly is the Press?

Before the Internet, we didn't run into this problem all that often because not everyone considered themselves part of the press, but now with hundreds of thousands of blogs, more and more people consider themselves part of the press. However, bloggers sometimes run into a problem when they want to cover an event.
Lake Oswego, Oregon allows journalists to sit in on their executive session meetings, but does not allow them to report on the meeting, so why was a blogger denied from entering? Lake Oswego drafted a policy to determine the legitimacy of a journalist, however the steps one would have to go through would take far too long to accomplish before a meeting.
In order to receive a press pass, you must regularly report on the Lake Oswego City Council, have multiple people working for your publication, consist of 25 percent news, register with a government organization and report continuously. Right away this separates many bloggers who may have a large following, but run their blog by themselves. What's to say a one-man-band doesn't have as good reporting as a blog that hires many people?

Success on the Interwebz

When flipping through the top bloggers slideshow, all I could think of was "Why didn't I think of that?" Many of these people had an idea and ran with it, not knowing whether their idea would be a hit on the Internet or will fall by the wayside.

I Can Has Cheezburger? is a great example of a blog that started as a simple picture of a cat and rocketed to the top of the blogosphere. The trick to Internet success is finding something that people like and will keep coming back for more. ICHC discovered people's love for lolcats. So many people visit the blog that the creators no longer have to contribute much to the content on the site. Fans can submit pictures and captions and vote on the funniest submissions.

The 1,000 true fan theory can also be applied to blogs. As long as you have 1,000 dedicated fans who will read your blog, share it on their social media sites, and purchase any merchandise you may sell, you have made it online. One key factor to maintaining this fan base is to keep in contact with your audience. Besides updating your blog hourly or daily, however you run your blog, you should also create Twitter and Facebook accounts to keep in touch with your fans while you are not posting new contant. Engage your readers, get them to provide feedback on your site, ask them for content suggestions, etc. Eventually these true fans will help to move your blog and give it more popularity, hopefully creating a higher income for you and a bigger fan base as well.

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Imagine being put in jail, full-well knowing you were innocent, but because of a lack of information presented during the trial you were wrongly convicted. That is exactly what happened to Donald Watkins.

In 2007, Watkins was convicted of murder and home invasion and sentenced to 56 years in prison. With the help of the journalism and law students at Northwestern University, Watkins received a second chance at justice.

Journalism students took Watkins' case into their own hands and dug up some interesting facts. The students at Medill put their investigative reporting skills to work and discovered that some very important information was missing from the trial. The students took matters into their own hands by re-interviewing key witnesses and reporting on the new found facts. Because of the persistent and probing questions that the students at Northwestern asked, they were able to give Watkins a second chance.

How come it took the work of some journalism and law students to get the courts to rethink their decision that effected a man's freedom?

Fifty Shades of Victorian Women

The Fifty Shades of Grey book series has created quite a stir among women and this is especially surprisingly considering our society is vastly different from that of the Victorian Age. If fiction literature was able to create many heated discussions in the 21st century, you can only imagine what kind of conversations were being had about real life situations in the late 1860s.

Women began to question their marriage vows and wondered what about a man defined her as a human being. "I am a free lover," Victoria Woodhull, founder of sexual reform paper Woodhull & Claflin once said. During the late 1800s another type of reform swept over America, sexual reform. Previously women were bound to their husbands because they were supposed to be their protectors, but in many instances the husbands became the abusers. Women had very little voice in any matter and some women like Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin began a newspaper in an effort to improve women's rights. Though they had their own struggles, like the unethical way Claflin went about acquiring advertisements. Despite this, Woodhull & Claflin was able to achieve a circulation much larger than that of The Liberator as well as received praise from major newspapers like The New York Herald.

One of the main issues that sexual reform papers like Woodhull's tackled was marriage. Woodhull like many girls dreamed of marrying a handsome husband who could protect and provide for the family, instead many including Woodhull married a man who lied about his profession, was an alcoholic and as a result was unable to provide for the family he created with Woodhull. Other papers called marriage a master and slave relationship. The women had very little say in a marriage, often if they were abused no one would believe them. Men were allowed to have relationships with other women, they could break off their marriage, but women weren't given this right.

References to sex was even more of a taboo topic in the late 1800s than it can be today and the newspapers tried to fix this issue. In Victorian America, words like intercourse and genitals were condemned, but publications began using them. The writings of Angela Heywood could be seen as an early version of Fifty Shades of Grey. Heywood wrote freely and did not hold back on her choices of words.

Women took a big risk when they began the sexual reform, but had it not been for those couple of women who knows when a women's right to marriage would have begun to change.

The Fight for Our Rights

We often find ourselves complaining about our 9-5 job or that we sometimes have to call into the office on weekends, so it is probably hard to imagine working from sun up to sun down six days a week. During the nineteenth century when Americans were working 60+ hours a week, they had very few outlets to express the frustration of their long works hours at the factories. During the late 1820s, several newspapers that supported workers' rights began to form. Notable publications included, the Mechanic's Free Press, Spirit of the Age and Workingmen's Advocate. One major task that these newspapers set out to accomplish was the ten hour workday. Willy Heighton of the Mechanic's Free Press, wrote how he rarely saw the sun his whole life since he started working at such a young age. Because many people like Heighton began working as a child, he missed many childhood opportunities such as attending school. Because workers now had a way for their voices to be heard, they also tried to get children educated instead of having them work in the factories. Makes you re-think complaining your 9-5 job right?

Another issue that plagued America in the nineteenth century was slavery. One of the best call-to-action newspapers was The Liberator. William Lloyd Garrison began The Liberator as an anti-slavery publication. What made Garrison's newspaper different from the others was that he included both sides of the stories, creating one of the first open forums in journalism. The Liberator was extremely effective in the way that southern governmental bodies tried to prevent the newspaper from being published and distributed. It is hard to come up with any modern day publications that have had such a large effect on the public. After running for thirty-five years, after achieving the goal it set out to do, The Liberator was published one last time. Garrison's newspaper played a vital role in abolishing slavery by giving information to the people and letting them decide for themselves if slavery should be illegal.

"A woman is nobody. A wife is everything." This statement seems to just beg for a heated debate. As a result, The Revolution evolved. The Revolution tackled the tough topic of women's rights and this newspaper like the ones previously discussed gave a voice to those that would have otherwise not been heard. Stanton and Anthony, the two founders of the newspaper, called for equal pay for women, political representation as well as speaking up about the taboo topic of abortion. For each of these topics, the women provided anecdotes along with facts that supported their stands. Though The Revolution did not have as long of a run as The Liberator, it packed a punch among it's readers and led the way to the Women's Rights Movement several decades later.

 If only modern media were as affective as the newspapers in the nineteenth century.

The Future of Journalism

Before taking this class I never heard of many independent media websites and several of them which I have taken the time to explore I have been throughly impressed. My previous idea of an independent media source consisted of a simple blog with a decent number of followers run by someone who also had a day job. So as you can imagine when I came across News21 I found my beliefs to be somewhat untrue. At first I was confused as to where the news stories where as I was greeted on the homepage by how News21 is redefining journalism and links to their media partners.

Once maneuvering to a sub-page I was able to find articles all related to one topic, in my case I clicked on an article that brought me to another page about transportation safety. So much for the lone blogger with a day job, this article, Remedies to Prevent Plane Crashes Languish definitely took some time to write. Richie Duchon went into great details and provided graphics that were very helpful and added something to the story.

If blogging is the new form of journalism and the students and staff who contribute to News21 are the new faces of journalism, than newspapers just might go extinct.