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?