This video discusses how journalists can stand out as good content today as there are so many posters posting so much information online these days. The video claims that news is no longer a product, but rather a conversation that doesn't possess a finite beginning or ending. The video continues on to say how simply writing articles is not enough anymore, and that journalists today need to go further if they want to stay relevant.

      In the video, the narrator discusses the important of Twitter as a vehicle for promoting ones self as well as ones career content. Twitter is a platform that, if used correctly, has the ability to spread reports and news stories to millions of users. On Twitter, as opposed to news sites, people are able to communicate and interact with each other; they are able to share and disucss their ideas, theories, and reactions from certain news posts. The video claims that journalism is no longer about making a product, but rather about providing a service; the service in the case of journalism on Twitter would be the service of discourse by bringing awareness to social, political, and cultural issues.

     Twitter allows journalists to adapt to the rapid changes happening in the society and social media today. On the platform, journalists are encouraged or often times even required to interact with other users/ readers of their posts. Those interactions are crucial, and create a dialogue that has the power to shift perspectives to allow change in the world.

     Overall, I believe that this video sends out an important message about journalism, especially relating to this weeks topic. The video highlighted certain aspects of Twitter that make it appealing for journalists, such as the effortless interactions, self-correction, and constant flows of new information at all times.

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   This article talks about how Buzzfeed evolved over time from a predominantly entertainment-based website containing memes and quizzes, to reporting on news events. It became a website that was used for both awareness and entertainment purposes.

     When Buzzfeed started incorporating journalism into their platform, they gained the attention of journalists and journalism scholars (Tandoc and Foo 41). The article reiterates that Buzzfeed is still using predominantly for entertainment purposes, with news and journalism being present by not focused on. To support their claims that Buzzfeed is in fact a worthy environment for journalists, the authors analyzed a study that compared journalism on The New York Times to the journalism feed Buzzfeed. Based on this study, the authors reveal that news reporting on Buzzfeed was consistent to the journalistic standards on The New York Times.

     The main focus of the article was a study that was conducted to gain insight on what Buzzfeed journalists thought about their journalism, and if and how Buzzfeed journalists see their organization as differing from traditional news sites. In this article, Tandoc and Foo explain that eight American Buzzfeed news journalists were interviewed about their “opinions, motivations, and perceptions” (45) about the work that they conducted at Buzzfeed.

     Overall, this study concluded that Buzzfeed journalists favour their organization over other news organizations because Buzzfeed creates a community among its journalists and writers. The participants stated that the community of news journalists contributes to the overall social togetherness of Buzzfeed as a whole. Overall, the study participants believe that the building of credibility, listening to the audience, experimentation, and redefining of norms work together to make Buzzfeed the unique organization that it is.

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  This article focuses on the implicit and explicit meanings of several different articles. The “alleged topic” within this article references what each article is put out to be about, while the “actual topic” is the topic of the article as analyzed through current societal, cultural, and political norms and trends. To be more specific, this article analyzes what the other articles claim to be talking about vs. what they are really saying.

     In her analyses of the format and hidden meanings of different articles, author Ashley Feinberg scours each article to find evidence (such as a quote or paragraph) that would support the implicit meanings she believes are behind the articles.

     One example of this is when Feinberg talks about the article Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web by Bari Weiss. In her analysis, Feinberg describes the “alleged” topic as what she believes Weiss is talking about. Contrastingly, the “actual” topic defines why Weiss chose to write about that topic specifically. Furthermore, Feinberg found a paragraph quote from the article to support one possible reason why Weiss chose to write about this topic. After doing some further research, Feinberg discovered that the author had previously been associated in an online feud that she (Weiss) likely wanted to bring to light.

     Overall, this article reminded me to always be aware of implicit reasons behind why certain articles were written.

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  In this week's lecture, I learned about the details of a journalism career. During lecture, it was reiterated that anybody with access to the Internet can be a journalist. However, in order to become a successful journalist and gain access to elite press conferences and events, one would have to work their way through a college degree in the field.

     This lecture also made me realize that one of the reasons why news is so important is because we don't see or hear most of what goes on the world. Therefore, we rely on the news and the press to provide us with reliable and relevant information about world events.

     In this lecture, I also learned a lot about the seven core concepts of news value. These concepts determine the overall quality of the story or event being discussed. One of the concepts which I believe is most important is timeliness, which focuses on how recent the story is, and when the events being reported took place. Nobody wants to hear about a story that took place years ago; people want to know what is going on right now. Additionally, another important concept to determine news value is conflict- it is important to broadcast both sides of the story so that the readership gets to hear both sides of the story.

     Overall, this lecture really opened my eyes to the many aspects of journalism that I did not previously realize were crucial to the news we receive everyday.

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References

Feinberg, A. (2019, September 05). New York Times Columnists vs. the Haters. Retrieved November 02, 2020, from https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/09/it-didnt-start-with-the-bedbugs.html

 

PBSoffbook. (2012, November 15). The Impact of Twitter on Journalism | Off Book | PBS Digital Studios. Retrieved October 30, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl9xI-kAE8A

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Tandoc, E. C., Jr. & Foo, C. Y. W. (2017, June 20). Here's What BuzzFeed Journalists Think of Their Journalism. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21670811.2017.1332956?journalCode=rdij20