Cave home for sale on Ebay

In Festus, Mo. a family faces foreclosure on their 3 acre property. They are currently trying to get private investors to help them out but if they don't raise enough money they will have to sell the house in the same manner they bought it, on Ebay. Stories like this are taking place all over the country but the reason why this particular family is receiving media attention over it is because the house is built inside of a cave!
The story was covered by Fox News (video at bottom of page), mscnbc, and CBS News. In an age in journalism where it is not uncommon for stories to be picked up by many sources, sticking out from the pack is not only harder to do, but more important to do.
In this particular instance, all three sources did broadcast new stories and posted them on their homepages. Msnbc sent a correspondent to the home to speak with the family and take footage of the house. CBS and Fox News chose to speak with the family live via web cam and roll photos of the home during.
I was amazed at how much of a difference it made having the reporter actually go to the home to report on it. It was interesting to listen to the family speak with the reporter live and candidly but just showing a few pictures as opposed to actual footage of the house was like night and day. Obviously each new source is going to pick and choose what stories they feel is the most worthy of their time and effort, but it is interesting to contrast two sources doing the same story and putting vastly different amounts of effort into them.

A blog about a blog about blogging!

I recently read a blog posting about why people love to blog. It seems that you can type in "blog about ____", insert anything into the blank and come up with results. It has almost taken the place of baseball as America's favorite pastime. The author of this particular blog seems to think that we do it because it is therapeutic.
I found myself agreeing with this statement. With informal writing style and train of though formatting, blogging is like writing an angry letter to your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend and then crumbling it up and not sending, just to get your thoughts out. (except that the entire world gets to read what you crumbled up and threw in the trash; consequences do apply) For most people, writing something out in print helps to get something off of their chest. Writing out their thoughts helps them work out the problem or perhaps see it in a different light.
Another blog posting on the same issue gives a list of reasons why everyone should be blogging. One of the things the list is the fact that you can hide any of your posts, meaning that your blog can become like a personal diary that only you can read. This goes along with the idea that blogging can be therapeutic.
One other way that blogging can be a form of therapy is by posting or discussing things in your blog that you disagree with or oppose. For example, I hate Bill O'Reilly and think that he is the most close-minded and ignorant man in the media and should never be referred to as a journalist. Here is an example of why. Now I can trick myself into believing that people will read this blog, see the video I just posted, and hate Bill O'Reilly with me. Knowing that I have reached an audience and possibly swayed someone's opinion in someway makes me feel good and is almost like going to therapy.

Podcasting

Because I am such a huge Keith Olbermann fan, a was naturally drawn to the link to his podcast page on the homepage of MSNBC.com. Upon further exploration I found that I could subscribe to have the latest episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann downloaded onto my i-tunes everyday. I then realized that I could put that onto my new i-pod nano and watch it at my leisure throughout the day. I was suspicious about how much this was going to cost me when I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I could do all of this for free.
As my first episode finishes downloading, I sit here pondering an issue that has arisen in many of my journalism classes this year. The discussion is whether or not online news should be provided to the public free of charge. I will clarify now that I have no answer to this question. I can understand and relate to both sides of this argument. I do think that news is something that everyone should have access to so that we are all educated on what is going on in the world at any given time. However, the journalists that are writing and researching these stories need to be rewarded for their hard work and service.
A compromise ( for lack of a better word) was suggested by one my peers that the basic news about what is happening in our community and world should be provided free of charge, whereas more special interest news such as fashion or sports would be more of a "pay per view" or subscription sort of set up. I thought this was an interesting prospect that should be given consideration. But at the same time, I really loved finding out that I could watch my favorite news anchor everyday on my i-pod for free!

Journalism???

Today the ability to decipher what real journalism is continues to be blundered. More and more issues arise everyday such as government control over news content or celebrity gossip and its validity as actual news. There are people and organizations arising to take a stand in the hopes of retaining good journalistic research and reporting. Among these is an organization called OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. http://www.outfoxed.org/
They are taking to stand that Fox News does not produce actual news content but is rather a mouthpiece for the government and other organizations. Their means of conveying this is through a DVD release where former Fox News employees and reporters speak out about their experiences working for the station.
But you need not pay $12.95 to find out what Fox News is reporting on. A quick look at Foxnews.com will tell you more about what they value than anything. Just under the breaking news or the major headlines for the day (Obama searches for new church, Jill Biden: Joe had options), is the Features and Faces sections and its headlines ("Dance in your undies": Tyra Banks and her top models share slim down secrets; FOXSexpert: It may be legal in Washington state, but student-teacher sex is never OK; and FOX411: Sienna Miller bolts 'Nottingham,' Ridley Scott looks for 'mature' lady.) Scroll down a bit more; '1 Fat Belly Rule: Obey' I cut out 2 pounds of body fat a week by following this 1 old rule. Scroll down a bit more and you'll find the U.S., World, Business, and Politics sections.
By mere placement on a homepage, you can see what FoxNews values as the most important and breaking. Now it is a question of whether this is in response to what we the readers want to see or what FoxNews wants us to see. I will end today's post with a video produced by OUTFOXED on their views on domacracy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIVnwYGU9Qo

Ethics in Journalism

Today in my Online Journalism class we discussed what the expectations are of people who read new stories online of the new sources and what the responsibilities are of that news source. There was a fair deal of overlap between the two. One of the things that I came up with is that because online news media seems to be where the industry is headed these days, when I read a news story online, I expect it to be written just as well if not better than in a newspaper. I expect that the journalist who wrote the story did not sacrifice good writing and well done research for timeliness or quantity. I also expect that the journalist did his own research and reporting and is not just reporting on reporting or taking stories from other online sources. 

As I write in this blog for the next nine weeks, I will take these expectations that I assume to be universal throughout the blogging and online journalism community into account at all times. I vow to always create original and well-written entries that will engage heated debates and hopefully questions that have no apparent absolute truth or answer. I will always research my topics to see what has already been written on the matter and do my best to put and new and fresh spin or perspective on it. I hope you enjoy reading this over the next academic quarter. Happy Blogging!