Journalism Students Need to Develop Their Personal Brand

Alfred Hermida describes the evolution of Journalism going from an institute based field to an individual based field. With the world wide web providing the means for people to express their opinions through blogs and web sites, an individual can by his or herself gain a reputation as a journalist. One does not have to get hired by a newspaper company to start writing and develop a reputation.

I agree with Alfred that buying your domain name on the internet and starting to create your own personal brand is important. In order for you to get your name out there and introduce yourself to the world, it would be helpful to buy your domain name and start a web page. It's important that the writer is knowledgeable and credible but at the same time uses his or hers' own unique style.

I thought it clever that the UBC graduate school has it's students take not only journalism courses, but elective courses that reflet their interests. This allows them to really develop their own personal identity and learn about a lot of different things, making them more capable of writing on numerous subjects.

The Coming Tug of War Over the Internet

Since the beginning of the internet companies such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Ebay have recieved equal rights to the internet without much payment to the telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, Time Warner and Comcast. These telecommunications companies are now wondering how they will support their building of faster, better communication lines. They are considering charging fees to companies such as Google and Yahoo for using their services.

It's hard to blame the provider companies for their desire to charge fees. They provide the servers and they should be re-imbursed for it. But, many believe the extra cost to internet companies could affect the flow of information that makes the internet so amazing. The telephone companies disagree saying that the companies that pay more for their service will get priority and have a better connection.

I don't think the government should step in and create a neutrality law to stop the telephone companies from charging more. Google, Yahoo and others will adapt and maybe with the improved services their business will increase, even though they are paying a little more to the telephone companies.

When Google is not Your Friend

It was surprising for me to learn that search engines record peoples' entire search history. Google had a recent legal spat with the U.S. Department of Justice over this issue. Many wonder if there is a law to protect people's online privacy, but there isn't really. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was enacted in 1986 before the internet was around and does not contain content regarding search engines.

I believe there are pros and cons to search engine recording. It could help find criminals. For example, although not obtained from Google directly, the words, "neck," snap," "break," and "hold" were fround on the computer of Robert Petrick before his wife was killed. Also, if people knew that what they searched for on the internet was recorded, they would be more responsible and wouldn't view sites that were innapropriate or offensive.

Google's ability to record people's search history does however take away from our privacy and liberty. There is something chilling about the fact that every move you make on a search engine is recorded.

I think it would be a good idea if Google were required to delete their search engine histories every few months.

The Rules of Netiquette

When using the internet it is sometimes easy for us to behave innapropriately, probably because we aren't dealing with people face-to-face. When interacting with people online, we should ask ourselves, "would I say this to the person if he/she were standing in front of me?" If the answer is no, then those words shouldn't be said. We need to remember that although we can't see the people over the internet, they are humans nonetheless.

This article also made points about respecting other people's privacy, sharing your expert knowledge, forgiving other people's mistakes and more. If we lived these rules of ediquette, the many problems on the internet wouldn't exist. The internet can be such a powerful tool. If we abide by these rules of ediquette, the many inconsiderate acts won't happen and it will stay the great asset it is.

Email Etiquette

This article on emailing gave 32 tips on etiquette. Although many of the tips were common sense, I found a few of them very informative and helpful. For instance, "Make it personal." An email should be personally addressed and include personal content. Mass emails aren't very appealing. Templates can be used to save time however. If a company is asked the same question multiple times, such as directions to it's building, or how to subscribe to a newsletter, templates can be pasted into the email.

Another way to make an email sound more personal is to use the active voice instead of the passive voice. "We will process your order," is more personal than the passive, "your order will be processed today."

Another tip was to use the Bcc: field rather than the To: field. If the Tl: field is used, the recipient knows to whom the email has been sent and in the case of a mass email, it's not as personal. It also publicizes someone elses email address without permission.

URLs

In our online journalism class on Wednesday we discussed the ABCD's of the internet. Accuracy and Authority, Bias, Content, and Design. There are some websites on the internet you can trust and some you cant. Sometimes you can tell whether a website is accurate and unbiased by the URL. Some of them are:.net.com.org.edu.gov.milThe most legitimate URL's are- .edu, .gov, and .mil. Not just anybody can put together one of these three. They are made by educators, the government and the military.In chapter one of the text book it discusses the differences between online journalism and the traditional journlism in newspapers. Journalism is evolving in such a way that almost all the newspaper comapanies have an online website with their articles and stories. Journalists therefore are required to be proficient with multimedia. Chapter two discusses the technology of online journalism- hardware, software and the internet. The internet has revolutionized journalism. Online stories can include visuals, sound recordings, and even video. In the earlier stages of the internet, computers were slower and the bandwidth wasn't as big, making videos less popular becuase they took so long to load. Today, computers and internet connections are faster, making videos and other multimedia much more popular.