Final Reflections

1. What did you know about journalism, citizen journalism, and blogging before you took the course? I knew Journalism was an important industry, and that newspapers were steadily declining. I knew of blogging as being more personal perspective of certain issues.

2. What did you learn about journalism, citizen journalism, and blogging through readings and discussions? What do you remember most from the readings? What do you agree with/disagree with? I learned how little certain content is filtered, and I think that is a great thing. I disagree with the need to find sources when reporting certain issues. Blogging is intended for people to put their message out there. If there was a deadline that any facts we used needed to be cited, that is fine, but finding sources made this site a journalist site for Albright, and not blogging.

3. Describe your experience with the hands-on element with a focus on what you learned, the educational value, and the application to the real world. Be sure to discuss:
a. Use of technology
There needs to be more time spent on learning the technology. There were many struggles within the class trying to use the equipment, and it was a disaster.
b. Covering stories/event/issues relevant to Albright/Reading community
We should have been allowed to cover our written blogs on any issue, local, state, national, international, so be it. The Albright Campus is very limited in stories, and makes it very hard for everyone to cover something. Second, as I stated earlier, this was reporting, not blogging. We were not allowed to cover the issues with the spins we wanted to, or to be as critical as we wanted to.
c. Class critiques of blogs/podcasts
The Critiques were very helpful, it is a fresher set of eyes, and allowed those being critiqued to gain input and ideas. I think the technical issues we experienced did take away from the quality of the stories, but having classmates give different ideas was very helpful.
d. Responsibility/freedom of blogging
The responsibility of blogging was too high for this class. If I wanted to do a video blog on our country's economy, I doubt I'm going to be able to have President Obama appear on it. Let's put that on scale, if I wanted to cover Albright's tuition, I doubt President McMillan has the time to help for a video blog. Blogging is not about reporting, it is about reaction. I fully agree we should check our information, and points should be deducted for false information, but the source requirements made this class non-blogging. Also, we are not reporters, we are students. We do our written blog, and if it gets noticed, great. Yes, it is good reporting to interview those who comment, and then post a follow-up story, but we are full-time students, who have other work to do for other classes, as well as moving on to the next story for this class. If there was extra credit offered to follow up that is a different story, but this class has 8 assigned blogs, and expecting more out of anyone because they got noticed is not completely fair.


4. Discuss what you now think/feel/believe about the role citizen journalism and blogging play in communication. Is blogging a form of journalism? Citizen Journalism is a great way of revealing issues that others would not otherwise be aware of. However, the fact remains blogging is not a form of journalism. Blogging is not about reporting the news. It is about stating how you feel about the news, and why you feel that way.