Online Reporting

I thrive on getting information fast.  I hate having to flip through the pages of a book or newspaper to find a jump.  I like being able to type in a keyword and have millions of articles/websites show up as a relavent search result.  However, the fact that newspapers are slowly starting to disappear is odd to me.

I talked to my dad about this during spring break.  Rather than spending my time on a beach, I spent my spring break searching for a summer internship.  I was interested in finding one that merged public relations and journalism.  This way, I would have experience in a field that wasn't becoming so hit or miss.  (Sad, I know.)

Anyway, the main thing my dad said was that he didn't quite understand why people were so fascinated with reading the news online.  I tried to explain how important speed is to everyone now, and he still thought it was pointless.  He brought up the fact that he is a commuter, and enjoys reading the paper on the train.  He feels bad for the people that have to squint at their Blackberry's and struggle with the small thumbpads.  

Those were good points.  I hadn't thought of many of those things.  He brought up the importance of the material object, holding it, flipping through it, running into articles you might not expect to, etc.  My need for speed slowly began to drift away after that conversation.  I can't imagine printing out pictures online and sending it to family members because they were pictured in some article.  Cutting it out of a paper gives you a totally different feeling.  To me, it makes it more meaningful.  Anyone can post pictures on the Internet, but not everyone can be pictured in a newspaper.  It's exciting when something like this happens.  

I'm crossing my fingers with hopes that the economy will turn and bring papers back, regardless of how important speed may be to the general population.

Last week's lecture

Swear words are interesting to me.  I tend to have my own rules as to what is considered acceptable, and who is allowed to say these certain words.  I don't swear.  Ever.  (Well, unless I'm extremely angry, but that rarely happens.)  I think my parents made it seem so taboo to me when I was younger that certain words just didn't enter my vocabulary.  I don't have a problem with it when other people do it; in fact, I usually laugh.  I guess that isn't a good thing, but I'm really only bothered by it when it is done excessively.  Being the age that most college students are, I have a feeling that most of us would shrug off an explicit word or two if our friends dropped them.  However, I tend to have standards when it comes to this type of speech.  It makes me laugh when one of my best guy friends drops the f-bomb all over the place for emphasis, but if a girl used that word to the extent that my friend Jack does, I think I would just stare at her.  My sentiments toward using swears in the news are pretty similar, actually.  To me, there are certain publications that act as "girls," and some that act as "boys."  (Sidenote: I'm starting to wonder if I should've lived in the 1950s...)  I don't think that adding a swear word to a written publication can be seen as a bad thing, so long as it is only used for emphasis and not dropped every other word.  Just like all other words, these words can help to convey emotion, just in a more attention grabbing way.  However, if I were to hear a reporter for CNN drop a swear word during a regular broadcast, I think my jaw would drop (unless he or she was reading something or quoting someone).  I can't seem to make sense of what I think is "ok" and what is "not ok."  All I can do is tell the difference between when I've been offended and when I haven't been.

Something to think about.

After hearing about the New York trip, I came to the semi-harsh realization that I am a total wimp.  I would NEVER be brave enough to drop everything, move to New York, sleep on couches and hope that I could find a job.  Why?  Because I would be afraid to fail.  How lame, right?  Half of that experience would be for the excitement, and all the while I would be wasting my time being practical.  I wish I could do something like that.  I wish I could just drop everything (and by everything I mean my inevitable time in the Chicago-land suburbs after graduation) and head to New York with hopes of getting a job at Rolling Stone Magazine.  I had a friend who did something like that....  After we graduated high school, he went to college for a couple of months and decided it wasn't for him.  He said that his time in a classroom made him realize that he wanted to pursue music.  So, he packed up and moved to L.A. with a friend.  He didn't make it in the music industry, so he came back home.  No harm, no foul.  He's fine with it.  He doesn't feel like a failure.  In fact, he lives in Seattle now because he decided that would be more fun than L.A.  I need gumption.  In other news, I actually enjoyed the story we read about the freezing cold day in New York.  Then again, I'm obsessed with descriptions.  I feel like I'm being cheated out of the whole story if I don't hear every last detail, no matter how minute it may be.  The writing made me think of The Catcher and the Rye.  The descriptions were wordy, but I could picture every single thing he was describing.  Interesting...I hated that book but I liked the article.  I did have to re-read some of the sentences to make sure I understood them completely, but I didn't mind because once I did, I was granted with a whole different picture.  As I said before, I think I'm just a sucker for descriptions, but you should know that by now; I just told you all about my friend from high school...  

I'm nervous.

For a majority of my life, I have always wanted to do something that involved music and writing.  No...I do not mean music writing; I'm not cut out for that.  Until high school, I never realized that this was possible.  I knew about music journalism, but I had never considered it for myself.  This past summer I fell in love with it.  How dramatic.  Music journalism allows me to insert my opinion and be passionate.  Writing about a board meeting wouldn't quite have the same affect.  Now, I am very aware that this is a specialized topic.  Chances of me getting the chance to write about music while in my twenties are slim to none.  What will I do, then?  After going through the sports and business sections of the Associated Press Stylebook, I became even more nervous.  I don't know anything about business!  I don't know anything about sports!  These are two major sections in most newspapers.  This freaks me out.  I know that these aren't the only sections, and that there are numerous things I would still be able to write about, but does this make me underqualified?  Should I start studying all I can about business (bleagh) and sports?  I have a hard enough time following the stock market, let alone the various chapters of bankruptcy.  That's a completely different ball field.  Eek.  Maybe I should subject myself to reading the business and sport sections of the Chicago Tribune.  Too bad my parents didn't use that as a punishment tactic on me when I was younger.  It would have been horrendous at the time, but perhaps I would be better versed in bankruptcy and rabbit punches.