Final Class Blog

Before coming to this reporting class, I had no idea about what beat journals were, and I had zero blogging experience. Now that I know how to post a blog and cover a beat, I can see how people can get addicted to it.

I found this blogging assignment pretty interesting. It taught me a lot about what's going on in the electronics industry, and helped me improve my writing technique in a fun way. Usually, writing assignments in my classes are so formal. You can't write in first-person; you have to abide by certain rules that follow either the MLA or APA format; and the only feedback you get is from the professor. Blogging is a lot more fun. Because of it's informal nature, it feels like I am telling my friend a story when I write. Over the weeks, I noticed that the blogs that seem to talk directly to you on a personal level, like a friend, are more interesting to read. It's also nice that there's more interactivity with blogs than there is with print media. I like that people can immediately comment on your posts, and you can build a more involved conversation. I also like that you can add links to relative articles and display graphics and videos.

Some of the sources that I used for my blog were CNN.com, USA Today, ABC News, local news, "Gizmodo" - The Gadget Guide, Technology magazines, international trading companies, and various online technology journals and blog sites, such as Ars Technica and Wired Gadget Lab. I chose these sources because they taught me about the newest, hottest consumer electronics on the market, and showed me interesting technology issues that people have been starting to talk about. The professional news stations and articles pointed me to fascinating, newsworthy electronics, and the other sources helped clarify my understanding of the gadget topics with their more in-depth stories. Surprisingly, I found the technology magazine and blog articles to be the best sources because they included more information and links to other relative stories. A lot of the professional news articles, especially ones from the Associated Press, were brief and didn't have a lot of good quotes from people. The magazine and blog articles seemed to dive deeper into the subject, probably because their writers were more enthusiastic about their technology subjects. These stories were also more interesting to read because some of them used an angle and chose one side of a debate. Regular news articles can't do that because they have be objective. However, I found that many of the magazine and blog articles included both sides of the story when professional news articles didn't.

Some major stories and developments that I followed were the invention of phoneless phone booths, the move from analog to digital TV, the use of cellular phones as portable medical labs, the banning of iPhone's card-counting application from casinos, and the pros and cons of following the newest tech trend-- in-car computer systems.


I thought most of these stories were covered quite well because there was a variety of sources to choose from for each story. The strengths in the coverage were that they were pretty timely, relevant, thorough, and newsworthy. Many were objective and extremely informative. Some also provided a number of pictures and video clips to view. However, some of the weaknesses included not telling both sides of the story, lacking quotes from people, and not being able to remain objective and interesting at the same time. In many cases, the objective stories were cut and dry, with not much information or emotional quotes. The stories that were interesting to read often weren't objective at all, and did not follow the proper writing style guidelines.

Stories that I did not see covered on my beat that I would assign to a reporter would be about more of the cons of technological inventions, a follow-up story about the the digital transition, and a story about someone who had something terrible happen to them because of their carputer. I noticed that a lot of technology stories are about how some magnificent technology was just developed and it will make life better or easier for you. There weren't very many professional stories about negatives of new technology, even though there were numerous negative reactions from consumers. I think it would be interesting to see an article that shows the dangers of having the trendiest ipod or GPS system. I also think that there should be a follow-up story about the move to digital TV because the last thing we heard was that the DTV transition was postponed. However, a lot of TV channels are still currently switching over to digital broadcast, and many people, who have not yet bought a converter box, are losing channels. I want to hear about what broadcast companies are doing about this, and how TV owners feel. I also want to know if the broadcast industry and the U.S. Government thinks that the nation will be ready for when the next transition date arrives. I think it would also be interesting to read about a tragic event that was caused by an in-car computer system because more and more cars are being built with these things already installed. Also there's been a lot of advertising for built-in systems, so it would be good for people to understand the dangers of this technology.

I learned a lot about media coverage in this class. I learned that professional news sources that we have come to rely on don't always have the best news coverage. I learned that bloggers and magazine writers often cover subjects more thoroughly and provide better perspectives than the news. They also sometimes take the time to check back and write follow-up stories when professional news companies don't. I also learned that blogging can be a lot better than normal news coverage because of crowdsourcing. Traditional news aren't able to interact with readers the way that bloggers can. I also learned the importance of being objective and checking sources. After reporting a story personally for this class, I understand that covering news isn't as easy as it looks. Overall, I think this was a great class, and I learned a lot.