On blogging, new media, and the news

Some interesting comments worth pondering in these:

Adrian Holovaty gave the commencement speech at his j-school at Missouri. As one of the experts on what can be done with new media to enhance journalism, he's a great choice and hopefully an inspiration:

Graduates, the fire should be burning under each and every one of you. You should be yearning -- aching -- to bring this industry into a new age. Your generation -- our generation -- is going to be the one to do it.

You're going to be the people breaking the rules. You're going to be the people inventing new ones. You'll be the person who says, "Hey, let's try this new way of getting our journalism out to the public."

One of Newsvine's most commented stories today is from a contributor: How the 'Vine' changed my view on liberals:

...most liberals on the vine are very thoughtful decent people who want the same thing I want. That's freedom to enjoy life and help those who need our help.
... I do think no matter if we are liberal, conservative, or moderate we all have the same hopes and dreams for the world, only different ideas on how to get there.

It's a perfect example of how some predictions that making news sites interactive can improve the conversation may be coming true.


Jeff Jarvis posted on a post on the BBC's Nico Flores' blog On Demand Media, Aggregates go mainstream, which among other things says

Content is nothing on its own. It only exists as part of conversation.

Jarvis relates this to a previous comment of his own,

it’s not content until it’s linked.

Yes yes yes. 'Links are the currency of the Web....'

Among the comments on Flores' posting, one from Terry Heaton:

I once interviewed bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and asked him how he wrote so many songs. "I never wrote anything," he replied. "I just heard them before others did."

Doug Fisher at Common Sense Journalism has some good recent entries with information and links on language, grammar and word useage, including a new AP style rule that should help end phone number confusion: Use figures. The form: 212-621-1500.
Among the links here recently: You Don't Say, a Baltimore Sun copy editor's blog; and Language Log, from two profs in linguistics and communications.