I have to argue that this generation and especially the next generation of teens and youths have already been exposed to our fair share of violence and graphic images. Do the words “Ninja Assassin” ring a bell? What with a good handful of the world’s nations already embroiled in bloody wars, societies watch news coverage filled with casualty reports and bombing injuries. We’re already desensitized, so I doubt a clip on a news site about a kid punching his friend in the face would expose me to a world of cruel violence. Not when news of Abu Grahib hit society two years ago (or was it three?).

I don’t know the teen violence rate for these past years, or if it has increased dramatically with the help of television and cyber news. But with HBO, (True Blood, The Sopranos) and CNN (real war coverage), can we expect the youths of today to be surprised by violence in the media?

It’s been a given in JRN 301 that because the news industry did not initially charge for online content, future money earning endeavors involving online news readers will surely fail. Apparently the biggest mistake was giving online content for free in the first place. But I believe that nothing is permanent and money can be made from almost anything. Economically speaking, news can be made into a good with high demand, with the right marketing strategy.

An article in the Sunday New York Times talks about a German newspaper publisher , Axel Springer, and how he plans on launching an online news site with a highly  profitable business model. Springer thinks that all news sites should offer paid content.

Theoretically, if there are no free products available in a market, the consumer population must pay for products. Springer acknowledges that the only way a paid content business would work is with Google’s cooperation, since Google has been known to offer free content or links to free content.

Google representatives have refused to work with Murdoch by taking away free news from their search yields, but maybe if Springer approaches Google in a nicer way, the two might work out a deal. Once again, economically speaking, the issue of free online content should be a quick fix. But theory might not necessarily apply to the real world. If it was really that easy to get a quick profit from internet news sites, the news industry wouldn’t be in the danger it is now.

While right now, there is always a way to get free news content (whether off Google or not), there might be a way to make all online news into paid or subscription based-content in the near future. If this business model does work and if it does encompass all online news sources, then there just might be hope for the news industry.

As for that algorithm that is supposed to influence what kind of stories freelancers write and what articles are more likely to get audience attention, that just scares me. At least reporters aren’t being completely replaced by machines and random generators but how much further will technology interfere with the news business? I think that if this algorithm were adopted into mainstream news writing, things are not going to end well. The news is going to be replaced by “news”, a.k.a celebrity gossip and hollywood speculation. World politics and strong news will ultimately have no place in society. But that’s if the algorithms take over.

I’m going to take comfort in the fact that machines and math cannot accurately predict everything. There will always be a mathematical and statistical uncertainty that will forever separate man from machine. Human behavior cannot be predicted by machines, and because of that uncertainty I know that the news industry will not give way to an industry run by algorithms. Technology can get away with a lot for now but after awhile I believe that the technological innovations will stagnate and make room for real reporters and real news. I hope.

The Berkely Daily Planet, which caters to the city of Berkeley, California, has recently been accused of having an anti-Semitic staff and of publishing too many letters on the Israel-Palestine conflict. There is now a campaign led by Jim Sinkinson, the publisher of a media-relations company to discourage advertisers from the Daily Planet. The campaign leader accuses the editor of the Daily Planet of being “addicted to anti-Israel expression just as an alcoholic is to drinking”.

This paper has been known to publish letters that take unpopular stances on controversial subjects. Did I not mention that the Daily Planet has not published said “anti-Semitic” material on its own but is instead publishing letters from readers? I repeat, LETTERS FROM READERS. Becky O’Malley, editor of the Daily Planet, has mentioned that her staff does not fact-check letters when they are submitted. Her paper has also suffered a 60% drop in advertising since last year, in no way helped by Sinkinson’s referring to the Daily Planet as a “publication that praises the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan”, according to a New York Times article from Friday.

Is this really happening? Why would a media-relations publisher go to such great lengths to discourage advertising to a low-budget paper? Why should letters to the editor cater to a specific ethnic or religious group? Last I checked, this is a democracy and freedom of the press is…wait…yeah, it definitely is in the Bill of Rights. Am I going to petition the New York Times and try to deter its advertising just because there’s something in there I don’t like? No, because I’m sane.

Targeting a paper just because you feel that their letters to the editor are anti-Semitic is one possibly justifiable move. But targeting a publication that has been known to publish letters (OPINIONS) on controversial topics and is barely keeping afloat given the current economic situation? Well, that’s just being a bully. Pick on someone your own size, or as O’Malley suggests, “start your own paper”.

It isn’t news that magazines have been suffering lately, subject to dropped readership and advertising. The only magazines that have been doing well, or managing to hold onto a profit, are the publications that target a specific reader group or have established a brand name. Cosmopolitan and Better Homes and Gardens are the kinds of magazines that have lucked out.

With Conde Nast closing down magazines every month and attempting to dig itself out of a huge debt, it makes sense that they’re trying to expand readership over different mediums. This online magazine newstand will be modeled after Itunes, but the exact model hasn’t been unveiled yet.

Conde Nast has offered a copy of GQ as an Iphone application for $2.99, but if these magazines are expecting to save their cash flow by charging money for every issue, they’re seriously mistaken. Itunes charges users a set price for one song, that can ideally belong to a customer forever. Why would I want an old copy of GQ on my Iphone or computer forever? If, however, this “online magazine stand” can offer a subscription price, (a LOW one), then that might attract more users.

I don’t think that making magazines available online and on Iphones is the best idea, in fact I think that it will cost way more money than can ever be expected in return. Magazines have been slow in the uptake of digital technology, but this slowness will probably be their downfall. I’m a part of that 18-24 target audience that most magazines aim for, and I can firmly say that I’m not enough of a loyal consumer to pay $3 for a magazine.

With Microsoft trying to launch Bing as a different kind of search engine, catering to individual users and promoting the most popular searches for that day. In my opinion, Bing is just a really pretty version of Google. Bing is new, its visually attractive and it offers a tour to new users. Now that the new search engine is attempting to make a deal with Newscorp, a deal that would make their news material exclusively available on Bing, and not on Google, things might get a little more interesting.

Google didn’t seem to have a problem with the threats that different news organizations are making. These organizations want to remove their material from Google’s search results if the publications do not receive money. This makes sense, since Googling something can let you see it for free, and Google News takes a lot of material from other online news sites. If Newscorp’s various publications move their news from Google to Bing, a good portion of Google users might just move along with them.

Bing’s ballsy move to align itself with failing news organizations might either signify the search engine’s downfall, or be the one move that makes Bing the new Google.

I’m not sure what her shift from television personality to a cable channel executive means to the world of journalism but I do know what a dent she’ll be putting in ABC’s ratings. Is she going to put her show on her own cable channel? I don’t know. But I guess we’ll all have until 2010 to find out.

My ideal job would be as a health or science reporter, doing research to support my articles. Let’s hope my degree in biology will push me in that general direction. Did I just make up a job in my head? Even if I did, there’s a first time for everything and maybe I will be one of the first science journalists who does her own research and can put out a decent article. With the news industry currently in turmoil, I’ll probably be jobless for years if I hope to find work in a science concentration news organization. If I were a smart journalist/job hunter, I would settle for whoever lets me write.

Give me a year and I would have proven myself enough to get regular assignments and live just above the poverty rate. Of course, being the JRN 301 student that I am, I would know how to write for online news sites, increasing my area of expertise exponentially. If I were to enter the job market at the end of this year, I’d use my age to my advantage, proving to my bosses that technology makes me a better reporter, not a lazy kid from Generation X.

I guess that’s my first talking point. Farnham worked for a few urban publications, so I found it interesting that a hyperlocal site like Patch.com appealed to him. His position seems to be more managerial, because I only saw his name on one article. Farnham and his coworkers make up the hub of Patch.com, watching over all the articles that come in from their correspondents posted in different towns. Maybe that’s the only way a guy from New York city, accustomed to speedy news and millions of readers, can run a local news service. How did a Manhattanite get involved in a hyperlocal news site?

I watched the reactions of people around me to certain things Farnham said, and I caught the look the professor gave the class when a student asked about the business model of Patch.com. Farnham emphasized the fact that Patch.com separates the business aspect from the editorial side, and I heard smirks all around with along with an all knowing look from Prof. Selvin. My guess is that Rosenblum said something very different in his speech. From what I read in Rosenblum’s blog, he simply did not believe in that divide between church and state that Farnham did, stating over and over again that the ideal journalist would know the business. What does Rosenblum think an ideal journalist is, anyway?

I was a little disappointed that I didn’t see any hard news on Patch.com. The entire site seemed like an interactive Yellow Pages/simpleton Facebook. I come from a suburb in an urban city (Staten Island) and did not see any towns that I knew of on the Patch main site. Farnham kept emphasizing how certain towns tend to depend on their Patch, but I don’t understand how users could be frequent visitors. I wouldn’t need to know about yoga lessons, wedding announcements or volunteer opportunities every single day, only every so often. The only story that interested me was about that ex-convict who ran for office, but didn’t win due to a story that was broken by Patch. Farnham couldn’t find that story but that was the only instance where I saw that Patch.com was more of a news site than a Yellow Pages. What is a Patch meant to be?

Since I wasn’t in class for the Rosenblum discussion, I want to talk about one of his blog posts that I found interesting. Despite my lack of a presentation for my citizen journalism presentation, I did my research and found out a lot about the reader as the reporter. Rosenblum supports citizen journalism, promoting video-literacy. He compared the evolution of the print media to a knowledge revolution, claiming that the elite class was intimidated by the idea of the common man being able to read, write, process and spread  information. Rosenblum thinks that we need to educate more people in the art of video literacy in order to improve our citizen journalism. If this trend progresses, once a majority of society masters one medium, another more advanced medium will come out and be used to spread news and information. I guess we’ll see what technology has to bring us. Does Rosenblum think that his site is a perfect example of video journalism literacy?

EDIT: Due to a comment that I deleted, I want to make a few additions to this blog.

First off, I’m not trying to criticize anyone, but I’m trying to make the best out of what I know. I wasn’t at the Rosenblum speech because I was on a trip for another journalism class all day. So forgive me for trying to infer, but my comparisons on RosenblumTV and Patch.com seem sound enough. My comments shouldn’t be dismissed simply because I missed a guest speaker. I did my research ahead of time and all questions I ask in this blog and any blogs prior aren’t with sarcasm, they’re because I genuinely want to know.

2) Where do you draw the line between social networking and community news? How much is too much when it comes to things like marriage announcements and award notices?

3) What brought you to Patch.com and how has that improved your writing style or broadened your experience as a journalist?

4) What is the business model Patch.com runs on?

5) Since the contributors are professionals who live in or near the communities they cover, how do you keep the news and announcements from being too bias?