Yakety Yak! Talk Back!
It is not much of a shock that many of us get our news online now. For years now, we’ve been going to our favorite newspaper sites to read articles at work or on our home computer as we drink our coffee. It is a great resource especially if you want to keep reading the paper from the last town you lived in.
But now we are doing something a bit differently, we are getting our news with a bit of flair. Many of us are using blog sites such as the DCist, backfence, Redding News Review or RawFisher. I find myself pondering the reason behind this, especially since I started keeping the blog for our show and this is my stab at it.
It is the way they present the news to us. They put them in a context that we find interesting an engaging. They discuss articles, or muse on events and also link you to the stories that inspire their posts. They also have the great feature of being able to talk back, so the readers are part of the site and the story. For those of us who yell at the newspaper in the morning and argue with ourselves (or the reporter) about what we read, we now have an outlet. Why am I guessing I’m not alone in this quirk?
Do you use the internet as your main news source? What are your favorite sites? Why draws you to them?
October 6th, 2006 at 11:42 am
In the last year or so, it seems as if the traditional news sources–such as The Washington Post–are attempting to incorporate more blogs and user generated opinion/content related to the stories.
I think it provides a very interesting addition to the hard news content, and a great glimpse of our culture.
October 6th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Here is an e-mail from Hayden in Alexandria that came a little late for the segment:
Do you think that the huge variety of blogs and user generated content may do more harm than good in terms of presenting well-researched news?
As the lines between publisher and reader are eliminated, I worry we might be watering down the standards for news and journalism.
October 6th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
I love the washingtonpost.com blogs but it’s now frustrating for me to read one of their “regular” articles and see that people can’t leave comments. The comments make me feel like I’m getting the full story…same thing with links. What good is an online story if we can’t see what the writer is referencing online? The links build credibility and encourage readers to develop their own opinions.