The Bread and Butter

Everyone knows these days the internet is the most efficient way to get information out, about anything! I personally use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media tools in order to accomplish this. Also, blogging is another effective way. The ONA winners of 2009, and the finalists for that matter, all had one thing in common, they each had in depth and well known blogs. My personal favorite was a finalist named, "The Daily Beast." Though it fell short behind its enemy, "Lasvegassun.com", I feel that the content on the site appealed to me more. "The Daily Beast" has a layout that is easy to follow and many of the features are what struck my eye. The first thing I noticed was a huge picture to attract the audience. The picture was one that was to explain the top news story and underneath had a quick, to the point, blurb. The other elements that really caught my eye was the video bar on the right, but most importantly the cheat sheet running through the middle of the page, which explained the top stories of the week. Each of these forms of multimedia attract me because they are eye catching and explain in depth info in seconds. In my personal opinion I thought about 90% of the finalists were better than the winners, this shows me that opinion of others is based solely on what they want to see. Though "The Daily Beast" was my favorite of all, the following also caught my eye based on the similar elements I tend to follow, http://mediastorm.org/ and http://www.publicintegrity.org/

The Next-Gen exposed by Chen

Apple has been expanding and taking over the world with all of there incredible technological advancements. But, why is Co-owner Steve Jobs so heated, so incredibly irate, that he could breathe fire out of his mouth at this point in time? It was the work of one man, Jason Chen. Keith Olbermann's video really got me tangled in a very twisty turvy spiral. I agree that Chen is a journalist and therefore should be protected by the laws set forth by the state of California. After seeing Chen's house busted into and utterly destroyed, made me sick to my stomach. I feel you can get your point across in a much more effective and less violent mannerism. So, in this aspect of the case I will stand by Chen, the property was his and violating his home and items he worked hard to get was wrong on the police departments thinking. However, when it comes to ethics, I believe Chen worked as an unethical human being. The right thing to do when finding a lost item not owned by you is to simply turn it in. Instead, Chen was money hungry and was able to make more than a pretty penny for his discovered piece of gold. The report defending Chen had a lot of good aspects in which the rights of the journalists shield law, stating that journalists have the right to not share sources for the sake of the people and/or cleanliness of the story, are represented. Overall,I think this situation deals more with the money aspect just like everything else in the world. Chen is being frowned upon because he took a bribe, however, as unethical as that may have been the laws defending journalists seem to hold more true than a simple signed note.

Your story is NOW... PUBLIC!!!

The power of the internet strikes again!!! Some stories go public because they are newsworthy; others are derived from gossip and word of mouth. After viewing Nowpublic.com, I have come to the conclusion that both of these story types were represented within this website. The lead stories for this website are chosen by what the staff perceives to be the most important topics at the time being. When navigating the site, on the left under the main story there was a button labeled "Staff Picks", that's why I believe the stories are chosen by staff members, rather than the general community. The story that is on the main page currently is "Faisal Shahzad", who will be charged for crimes having to link to terrorist acts. Below the terrorism story comes the Bp Oil spill, which in my opinion should be the main story, and a Phillies baseball fan being tasered. People who write for the site aren't necessarily journalists, because anyone can choose to write for the site. Now public is easy to sign up for and anyone can do it. The site allows you to upload videos, bring in RSS feed, write your own opinions, etc. Once you publish posts Now public puts your feeds in a database in order to share your story with others! As a writer for the site you are not paid, however Now public gives you the tools to represent yourself and eventually get a paid position somewhere else. You are your own editor for this site. You choose what you want to write about. You upload items that help You. The point is, you are your own boss, own editor and self-sufficient writer, I love that! This site is effective because it gives you the tools to be your own boss and allows you to get your name out there with the built in global community. The downfall of Now public is that though you post your story, the story won't necessarily be read by a ton of people. You are your own boss so getting the story out is all up to YOU!