I just read on CNN.com that YouTube is playing a role in the white house campaign. At first the website was just resurfacing old video clips of debates in which the canidates said some ridculous things. Like, Jon McCain saying "remember that old Beach Boys song, bomb Iran. Bomb, bomb, bomb." and would be presidental canidate, Sen. George Allen saying "Let's give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." Pretty much quotes coming back to haunt them years later.
But now it has envolved into the average-joe-smoe interacting with the canidates. There was even a debate held in Charleston, South Carolina last July where the canidates answered questions that average americans presented on YouTube. Some were light, but others were pretty loaded questions. Such as the one that addressed whether the candiates would meet with unfriendly dictators during their first year of presidency. Questions like that made the canidates realize how serious the people of America are in selecting their new president. The interaction between the candiates and the american citizens is closer with the help of YouTube.
I think that this interaction is GREAT. The president of the US should represent their people, and the only way to do that is to actually respond to them.

Journalism Revolution

This weeks readings were on the revolutionary changes in the field of journalism. I found all of the readings very interesting. Whenever I tell someone I am studying journalism they always seem to ask me which direction I am going to go with it, print or broadcast. That question has become outdated since online journalism became popular. I am never sure how to answer them because I am interested in both, can't journalists be both? With online journalism it is possible to do both. It is possible to tell a story with visuals, audio, and print.
The one reading talked about how some people just watch tv or read the news, but they are only getting either/or when doing so. People who REALLY want to be informed have been using the web for their news because it is more detailed. Instead of getting just the print version or just the broadcast version, they get both.
Another aspect of online journalism that is interesting is how the videos found on news websites are just similar to a short documentary.Many people do no watch documentaries, unless it is something big like the Micheal Moore ones. However, they are really informing, yet at the same time entertaining. Creating a video package for an online news source is similar to a documentary because it also has to be entertaining, or have some type of engaging aspect to it. It also does not have the time contraints of videos for tv. Thus, you are able to be a bit more experimental with it. Focus on a story of one person and then bring it out into a bigger picture, or infuse some slides or pictures, instead of just footage.
On that point, I liked the one reading about how people are becoming numb to mass destruction or mass suffering. It order to really engage a viewer into a video or picture you have to single out that one suffering person. The impact of one person's story is so much greater than that of an almost generic-like story of some type of destruction. The world has become numb to bad news, but hopefully they have not become so numb that they no longer feel compassion for a single human being.

Republicans Clinging On

Its becoming more and more evident that Republicans are getting a little scared. With the congress now swung to the left side, they are making every last effort to ensure that the presidency stays republican next November.
Since Giuliani is currently the forerunner for the right sided party he has been gathering support from many important conservatives, including Reverend Pat Robertson, a prominent Christian leader and social conservative activist. Robertson was once quoted saying- "Americans had left themselves vulnerable because they had insulted God by allowing abortion and pornography," when discussing the attacks on America in 2001. Now why would Robertson want a pro-choicer like Giuliani running the country? Well, right now its looking like it will be either Clinton or Giuliani....and God forbid, America gets out from the restraints of the Republican party.

Mayday Mayday

The online readings for this week kind of surprised me. The topic for this week is investigation, so the websites that I looked over were the Investigative Reporters and Editors online resources. The one site, In the News Archive, was the ultimate reporter's access to everything, sudden disaters (natural and man-made) to bombings in foriegn countries. I was amazed to see that all this information was gathered into one little link. I mean there was even a link for ferry accidents. It just goes to show that if you are going to be doing some investigativve reporting there truely are lots of resources to reasearch your topic of investigation. I wonder if the reporters for 60 minutes refers to IRE?