Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Video killed the radio star — so what about newspapers

Video killed the radio star.
Remember that song? It wasn't especially good but it had a message that can be seen today.
The song is the first video shown on the debut of MTV in 1981 and celebrates the golden age of radio. Ironically the music video paved the way for a big change in the way people listened to their music.




Here's another remember when for you; waiting on the newspaper to arrive, flipping to your favorite section and reading.
Yes, reading printed material. Good for one day's worth of news.
TV delivered their news two-to-three times daily. Then along came the Internet. Hey, now we can find out what's going on if we missed the slotted times.
Competition began to grow as technology branches out. You can get your news instantly on your cell phone.
What’s next?
Update the Internet. Quick. Hurry up. People need to know what's going on in their world.
Now newspapers are online. The printed material is available for free a majority of the time, with numerous updates during the day.
This forces newspaper reporters to write a breaking story swiftly and accurately and send it to the masses via Internet.
Later in the day, after all the TV stations have covered that same story, the newspaper story will be rewritten with the most up to date information available as it should be.
Newspapers across the nation are forced to downsize their staff, some are forced into bankruptcy and others will rely on the Web alone to convey the news.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, founded in 1863, published their last print newspaper on March 17 then moved to a strictly online format.
Is this the demise of the newspaper as we know it?
Even if I weren’t employed as a journalist I’d still want to reach for my newspaper. It’s ingrained in me. I’d watch my father read the paper as a little kid and soon I was reading too.





I have photo albums with newspaper clippings from way back. Photos from whatever softball team I was on a the time, clipped out and saved. Interesting articles and stories about family members and friends. A snapshot of a moment in time preserved to show future generations of my family.
Others may argue that the same can be done on the Internet and I agree. I surf for news all the time but I still prefer the printed material.
So tell me how you feel about newspapers.
Do you feel newspapers are dying?
What’s in the future for newspapers?
Would you rather get all your news from the Internet or mobile device?
Where will newspapers be in a year, five years, 10 years?
Yea, I’m asking a lot but I really want to know.
Mary Meaux

Thursday, April 2, 2009

“Twitter me this”

Today’s daily grind is a bit of a mixed bag for me.
Let me explain.
Earlier this year my editor discovered a little something online called www.twitter.com
He thought it’d be a neat idea to jump on this new, micro-blog thing. Other news agencies use Twitter, politicians use Twitter, Lance Armstrong used Twitter to report a bicycle stolen. Heck, even President Obama uses Twitter.
Twitter allows a person to post really small blogs and limits posts to 140 characters. I said “characters” not words.
So as a reporter who can get pretty wordy I’ve had to adapt to this new environment.
On Twitter there are things called followers and follows. Followers are the ones who check out your Twitter, kind of like a friend on MySpace.
Follows are the sites/people you subscribe to, once again like MySpace.
I looked around on Twitter and found some really dumb stuff. Ok, that’s my opinion. I just find it hard to wake up and get on Twitter (as a person, not reporter) and post stuff like “I just brushed my teeth!”
At first all I did was whine. “I have to sign up for this? Who’s gonna read it? Why go to Twitter when someone can just log-on to our Website (or whatever site you get your news from).
After trial and error I’ve mastered, sort of, Twitter. When we (The News) posts a story online I post it to Twitter too.
But my competitive nature (or my “bull headedness) came out. I watch the number of followers and posts on our site. Just a week or two ago we had 40 followers. Today, that number is 70. (Yea, the numbers will change, I know, I know).
I find myself in a rush to get something on Twitter as soon as I can because somewhere, someone out there needs to know what news I’m posting.
So that’s my story. The love-hate relationship with Twitter.com
So, do you Twitter?
Mary Meaux