Welcome to Online Journalism... Goodbye.

It's occurred to me recently how much I enjoy this thing called "online journalism." Sure I love the actual journalism aspect of it, reporting, researching, and writing, but even more so I love the videography and design of it as well. As I've been putting together my multimedia package, I've realized how much I've enjoyed making the video more so than writing my story. Unfortunately for me, I have one more package to put together before I return to written journalism for the rest of my college career.

If there's one thing we've learned in this class thus far, it's that online is the future of journalism. Right now, as CNJ442 is my only journalism class, my entire journalism world is online. I haven't even thought of doing work for a newspaper since last semester. It's strange to me right now that when I return to Miami in the fall, I will no longer be engulfed in this online journalism world.

CNJ442 is an introductory course. It may not be titled "Intro to," but it's an introduction to all the different elements of online media. No one without any previous video experience is going to walk out of this class with a mastery of video production. And that's exactly how it should be, you need to start somewhere. But why does my online journalism education stop at an introduction? If this is truly the future as everyone says it is and everyone else believes it is, why are there no advanced classes in online media for journalism students? It's nice that if people want to focus on newspaper writing, they can stay on the newspaper track, but does UM really believe that it's doing its best to prepare these students for the future by allowing them to learn how to write solely for print? And what about all of those students who will never even think of taking CNJ442? They will be entirely left out of this online world of the future.

It seems to me that the School of Communication needs to rethink its journalism program and perhaps bring it into the 21st century. We can't all write for the Hurricane for forever.

What's so great about being 'skilled' anyway?

In my international relations class this week, we've been learning about the international political economy and the growing income gap between the poor nations of the South and the rich nations of the North. A reason for this is that the small percentage of the population considered "skilled labor" makes a majority of the income, while the "unskilled labor" continues to experience decreasing wages. In article after article, I read how the demand for skilled labor is increasing due to improving technology, while the demand for unskilled labor continues to decrease.

If skilled labor is in such high demand, then why do I spend night after night worrying that I'm never going to be able to find a job?

I would think that after spending four years at a top university, I would be considered skilled labor. Actually, I think I reached this classification after the fourth grade. But I watch my friends graduate year after year without job offerings. People who have spent a pretty penny on their education so they could make a prettier penny after they graduate. What's going to happen to me?

Journalism isn't exactly a booming field as far as employment goes. Convergence means that more people can do more things, meaning fewer employees needed to perform the same functions. Sure it's great that when I graduate I'll not only be able to write, but I'll also have some skill in web design, video editing, and photography. But what happens when everybody learns these skills?

At the new media panel last month, the panelists spoke about how most news companies are hiring on a freelance basis and when they hire full-time employees, they consider their freelancers first. You mean to tell me I'm spending $100 grand on my education so I can freelance for five years after I graduate? Well that's great.

Those same articles also spoke about how the demand for more unskilled labor (people without college degrees) will begin to increase in the U.S. This makes sense when you think about it, since all those college graduate positions will eventually fill up and leave a demand for plumbers and mechanics. Considering I'm putting so much into my education and I still probably won't get a decent job after I graduate, maybe I should just drop out and become a garbage collector. I hear they make $90 grand a year.

I Think I've Seen That Somewhere Before...

I remember the days of writing papers back in middle school, when I would go anywhere online and find any information relevant to my subject. No footnotes, no bibliography, just me throwing in information I had read as if it were my own.

But wait, isn't that illegal?

Of course it is, but at 12 years old, I didn't know that nor did my teachers really care.

The thing about copyright infringement is that it really doesn't matter unless the work you're producing is going to be read or seen by the person who holds the copyright. Obviously, no one other than my teacher was going to be reading my paper back in middle school. Even now, no one other than my teacher is going to read my 15-page paper that I spent days on. The only difference now is that teachers actually care. As they should.

But who is reading my blog? My teacher. Maybe a few of my classmates. There are millions upon millions of blogs on the Internet, only a small percentage of which are actually read by a large number of people. What's to stop all of these bloggers from stealing someone's work when no one is ever going to know?

This is the problem copyright owners face in the age of the Internet. If their work appears on a popular site, such as Yahoo or AOL, obviously they will find out. But if I go onto Google Images, find a sample of someone's photography and use it without credit, there's really nothing to stop me. Well, other than integrity.

Apparently I Have a Mental Illness, Do You?

Do you text message multiple times throughout the day?
Do you feel uneasy when you haven't checked your email in a few hours?
Do you spend your free time playing video games online?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you too may suffer from a possible new mental illness called Internet Addiction.


This morning I read an article from Switched.com called "Internet Addiction Could Be Classified As Mental Illness." Basically, to sum it up, "this month's issue of American Journal of Psychiatry says Internet addiction -- which includes 'excessive gaming, sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging' -- is a common compulsive-impulsive disorder."

Well why didn't they say that before I got addicted to the Internet? Thanks a lot, psychiatrists.

I'm one of those people that never turns off their computer. You know, the kind whose away message on AIM at 4AM reads "sleeping." I go online as soon as I wake up, right before I go to bed, and all that time in between. I bring my laptop to three out of my five classes and surf the web while I work for three hours four days a week. Clearly, I have an addiction.

But really, who in my generation doesn't? We've become accustomed to going online for everything from news to recipes to movie times. We know best that any information we could ever want can be found on the Internet. And what's wrong with that?

Like I've said before, I keep hearing about how great online journalism is and how much potential there will be in the future for these new media. Not only do I agree 100%, but I also enjoy this new media far more than I've ever enjoyed traditional media, both as a receiver and a communicator. But here we have this group of psychiatrists telling us that too much Internet could be a bad thing. And one could easily argue that online journalists should receive the most blame for this "Internet addiction."

If those who suffer will require hospitalization, as the article suggests, it looks like all of us will be spending some time in the ol' psychiatric ward. If that doesn't sound like something you're interested in, you should probably get off my blog and go read a book.

Always Up or Down, Never Down and Out

When I began studying journalism, all I heard was how the journalism profession was on the way down and out. There wasn't going to be a journalism market when I graduated college. Even still, every time I see my dad, he repetitively tells me how I shouldn't be studying journalism. My aunt and uncle are journalists in Germany and apparently their careers are less than glamourous (although they seem happy to me).

A year and half into my college career I'm finally hearing about how much the journalism field is changing and growing. Professors and professionals are telling us how much opportunity is out there for people who can master this "new"media. I can finally go home and when my dad tells me how journalism is dying, I can prove him wrong. "Journalism" how my dad thinks of it, is dying. But journalism, what is actually is now, is continuously explanding. I'm excited.



To my readers: I'll be taking the next week off for Spring Break. Check back on the 18th.

Our Old Friend, the Newspaper

I'll admit, the only print newspaper I ever read while I'm at school in Miami is the school newspaper, the Hurricane. I pick it up every Monday and Thursday morning in the dining hall and read it while I'm eating breakfast and on my walk to work. To catch up on real news, I browse the New York Times online and sometimes my local newspaper, The Staten Island Advance. So why if I can read my other news online do I rush to finish the Hurricane in its print edition before I go to work?

What's great about the Hurricane is that it's small and relatively easy to fold, although I still often have trouble doing so while I'm walking through the wind. Yesterday, as I flipped the page, a loose Geico ad fell out of the paper. You could imagine how annoyed I was when it fell to the ground and I had to pick it up and find a trash can to dispose of it in. At that moment, I thought to myself, why do I bother with this? Why don't I just read the online version during my free time at work or throughout the day?

I really have no idea. Something about picking up the paper two mornings a week just appeals to me. I don't feel like I'm getting the full paper when I read it online. Even reading my home newspapers online doesn't quite satisfy me as much as reading the actual paper when I'm home. I'm not alone in this. Millions of Americans, young and old (although more the latter), still pick up the morning paper. Online journalism enthusiasts insist newspapers are on the way out, but there must be something there that keeps us reading them. Whatever that something is, newspaper companies and print journalists hopes it lasts; their business depends on it.

Correction

It has been brought to my attention that the Lemonade Kid video I discussed yesterday was not done by Ricardo Lopez, but rather was a video he found on a multimedia blog.

In addition, the video I referred to as "Chicken Chasers" is actually called "Chicken Busters" and can be found here.

I apologize for my errors.