After viewing Michael Wolff’s video about where he feels journalism and new media is heading on his Web site Newser.com, I became relieved that somebody had the guts to push the envelope in this never-ending debate on the state of journalism. I agree that journalism is headed towards aggregation but I don’t feel that it will completely destroy companies such as the Wall street Journal or the New York Times because some people will always trust a hard copy from a familiar name.

BUT….

The majority of today’s readers/ viewers have a hectic and fast-paced lifestyle and so how, where and how long they pay attention to their news source is reflecting that more and more. So, to combat this editors and staff across the country are downsizing as we know, however few have been bold enough to have companies that solely focus on online media because a few research studies have shown that revenue can declined.

As far as aggregating goes in the case of Wolff, I feel that it is okay what he is doing. His business model, it seems, is to create a “one-stop-shop” for readers to go to get all of their news quickly and briefly. And these days, it is true that many people just don’t want to read long drawn out articles.

Jakob Nielsen’s F reading pattern study showed that people read in an “F” pattern when viewing a Web site and after that, they skim an article or read it fully depending on their level of interest in that particular article. This proves that our generation is one of skimmers.

So, Wolff created a place where a reader can get all of their news quickly from a variety of sources. This, in my opinion, is why so many newspapers are angry; they were competing with each other to be the “number one” news source, and here come aggregators who put them and their competitors on one site; ultimately causing their business models to go out of whack.

http://quikmaps.com/site/129117

Chicago’s Lincoln Park area  is one of the city’s most affulent neighborhoods. Knowing this, a few individuals took matters into their own hands by beating and robbing residents in the area.

A total of seven attacks occured while two of the attacks, police say, may not be related to the other five.  All of the victims targeted were men in their early to mid-20s and walking alone in the early morning hours. Each was confronted on foot from behind by at least four attackers, who were also men in their 20s. The victims were asked for their wallets, then beaten. Two of the victims were hospitalized.

**As of December 2009, no arrests have been made and police are still investigating the last two attacks.

Attack information source: Chicago Police Department Records

The Web site FLYPmedia.com is easy on the eyes. The layout is clean and the images are very clear. Some stories on the site need a quick fix as they are hard to read (i.e. The end of the Astronaut) due to the lettering not being readable on the screen’s background.  Aesthetics aside, the site offers a nice range of topics and interesting ways of browsing the stories covered on the site.

The site does showcase three of the “10 Laws of Interactive Storytelling” from last class’s lecture. Those are:

• #10- Make it interactive

 • #7- Map it!

• #3- Save elaborate presentations for projects with staying power

The Web site is very interactive because as I browsed the different stories, the feature that allowed me to actually “flip” pages as though I was looking in a magazine was very intriguing. It made me want to find out more information about the different topics being discussed.

The “mapping” and “elaborate presentations” aspect was seen in the story titled, Powering a Green Planet. The beginning slide of this story mapped different parts of the project that would be discussed (i.e. wind, power and solar issues). It was a very elaborate presentation with staying power because of the emphasis anything and everything green. These days everyone’s concerned about our planet and how we can “save it” so such a presentation on the site has staying power because it can be referred to by journalists like you and I in the future.

In comparison to the RedEye site and Gaper’s Block, FLYPmedia.com is way more interactive. RedEye’s main source of interaction comes from links, comments, suggestions and RSS feeds. The same can be said for Gaper’s Block. The writing style for RedEye site is simple in that includes a picture, a few paragraphs a quote and that’s it ; similar to its print version.

In this world of constant change it’s kinda hard to decide what “today’s journalist” needs to be like. What would make someone the prototype journalist? Knowing SEO terms like the back of one’s hand or being the best editor known to man? I’m not sure but I keep hearing that being a “jack of all trades” will be the key to getting hired.

            And I agree…to a certain extent.

            Why?

            Mostly, because I won’t feel like lugging around equipment to produce a story when all I really love to do is write, but I have to set myself apart. With my love for PR and healthcare, simply knowing how to structure a sentence will not get me a job. I must be able to explain the complicated terms and information to thousands of people who are hungry to understand the state of the healthcare system and all of its new products to come.

            First and foremost, I and most of “today’s journalists” need to be able to edit. This is one of the skills I feel was missing in Vadim Lavrusik’s article, “8-Must Have Traits of Tomorrows Journalist.” What better way to reduce the credibility of a company than to have misspelled words on the company’s site? Spell check please.

            Second, missing from that list was “personality.” Thousands of people blog every day.  Just like an interview, a journalist must set themselves apart. The more unique the personality (which can be done by the style of writing) the bigger the following. Thus, more eyes will be glued to the computer screen just waiting for the writer’s next post. So sell yourself!

            I hope to accomplish this one day.

            Last, today’s journalist needs to be able to determine what is newsworthy. And get to the point. No more, no less.