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What does having a blog do for you as a journalist?

I mean, yes, the papers and media outlets we all want to go work for are looking for young people with new ideas and media skills such as creating Web sites (check), updating sites (check), knowing the software (check) and blogging (double check).

But for how long is this skill going to be something they look for when considering our applications?

I feel like when this craze wears off — and people once agains realize that while blogs work for some things in the journalism world, they really don't work for others — will personal "personal opinion" blogs (like this one) make me obsolete (or at least undesirable) in the workforce.

At the same time however, I rather relish this opportunity to give even a little opinion, having to hold it in under punishment of death (okay, not quite) in my other journalistic endeavors.

This is so far such a short lived wave that, while I am learning everything I can about being a fully online and internet and multimedia savvy journalist, I really fear that it will be like learning everything you could to be an expert on "New Coke" and then being crushed when it turns out to, in fact, be pretty useless in the end — you would have been better off sticking with the old.

But I may have "soon-to-graduate-journalism-student" paranoia.

Even recipes are better online

That title's a little sensationalist, but as someone who loves to cook, I've found that the internet even beats my favorite foodie magazine Bon Appetit. In magazine form, honestly, it has too many ads and too many stories about food and wine at restaurants I will likely never visit.

I feel like a traitor to my profession having said that honestly. But I get the magazine for the recipes, and one site - epicurious.com - gives me all those and more. The site pulls recipes from the archives of Bon Appetit, Gourmet and healthy recipes from SELF.

(There may be some more, but those are the main ones I care about.)

Anyway, thinking about how I kind of really do feel like getting my recipes is better online than going to the printed product made me feel like a hypocrite. To an extent, I am like those people who pick up The Daily Texan (or whatever newspaper you like) just to do the Crossword, or just to read the classifieds or get movie times.

But it is an undeniable fact of our generation - we want what we want, nothing else and nothing more. So how do we reconcile that with the fact that without those ads and extraneous stuff, these publications can't afford to put out the stuff we like (unless they are entirely internet based, but that requires hosts who are willing to keep things consistent for a rather small profit (if there is any profit at all.))

So what am I saying? Basically that we all need to be aware of what we are doing when we put on our blinders and search the web for only what we want to see. Me, I'm going to remind myself at the grocery store that picking up Bon Appetit could also give me good tips on how to do things and how others do things in addition to just providing me with recipes.

And if we want the Web site half of the site to continue, we sure better keep reading in print.

Does music have a nationality?

I was reading an article a UT J-student wrote about online downloads and they mentioned Radiohead's now famous "free" In Rainbows download.

(Surprisingly, I'm not going to talk about downloading.)

What struck me as odd was that this writer refered to them as "English rock band Radiohead." While I cognizantly recognize that, or course, the members of Radiohead are British, aren't we past the age where we need to refer to them as such?

In the past (say way back when in the 60s for woodstock and even through the 70s and 80s), bands like The Who and The Clash were touted as "British rockers" because of the distance implied. EX: "All the way from across the pond, it's THE WHO!"

But these days, that distance is almost nonexistent. Musicians, actors, artists, politicians - everyone jumps the pond with no more fanfare than it takes to blow your nose. The focus is not on the distance anymore, its just about the music ... man. (I feel so cliche.)

Something unusual, like a Singapor-ese (Singapor-ean?) rapper might warrant the label "from Singapore," but especially artists from Europe, while they may come from one country, they are not a NOVELTY! Their songs are heard all over the world thanks to iTunes, illegal downloading, legal downloading (you go, Radiohead!), live broadcasts on TV and online, and a wide range of tours that can go anywhere in the world with relative ease.

So to recap - rock band Radiohead. Not British rock band Radiohead.

Thank you.

Podcasting blues

This year marks my first foray into podcast news.

I've been trying to do it on a shoestring, which basically involves the following: Free Audacity editing downloag (just google it and you're good), a roughly $50 Olympus VN2000 digital recorder that I've had since freshman year for reporting and a $10 mini jack plug to transfer interviews and narration to my computer for editing.

Surprisingly, it has been working okay - I'm at least producing something. However, the background noise and soung quality that I'm getting is frequently falling out the bottom of the boat. I could "check out" a $600 digital recorder with high quality mic, etc. from the Journalism School, but then what would I do to when I don't have that equipment (...for instance at the less well funded college paper ...)

So now I need some tips on how to make this work better. IF you have any, please share.
Here's some I have:

1. Don't record near your computer - the whirring noise WILL be picked up

2. When you're recording narration, don't breathe heavily in between sentences (maybe turn your head if you can't do that.) When your voice goes down, the mic will amplify the sound of your breathing and make you sound like an obscene phone caller

3. Background noise behind an onsite interview is generally okay, so DON'T try to compensate by shoving your mic in your subjects face. You'll tick them off and get wierd peaks in your interview

4. Don't overedit your sound. There's lots of tool in audacity for "noise removal" and "diffusing" and that's all well and good, but sometimes they make things worse. Case and point, I was doing an interview in a store that had incredibly loud, low pumping music in the background which I tried to remove to make the interview more clear and not blow the audience's eardrums out. In the end, the interview was clearer, but the program also seemed to remove all the low-range qualities of her voice making her sound unnatural

A mini thesis

So for the final project in my multimedia class, I am hypothesising that multimedia journalism and web publications serve the needs of higher-income groups, but lower-income groups will (always?) be better served by print publications, specifically free, and community specialized print publications.

The idea is that because low-income families have less access to computers (according to census data here, while overall 62% have computers, only 30% of those who make under $25,000 have access )

I am planning to get most of my research materials from Census data and watchdog groups, but I am also planning to do interviews with at least one from each of the following groups: small community print publications, web-based publication, large web and print-based publication.

If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know!