http://tags.library.upenn.edu/tag/blog+future PennTags Feed http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/42885 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/42885 <p> <div class="byline">Darling, Damon. "Get the Tech Scuttlebutt! It Might Even Be True - NYTimes.com" NYTimes.com. June 6, 2009.<br /></div> <div class="byline"><br /></div> <div class="byline">This article from NYTimes.com discusses the issues of ethics in news/gossip websites that fail to verify their stories before publishing them. Darling uses the case when two online rumor/news sites, Gawker and TechCrunch, published false stories about Apple buying Twitter to discuss the larger issue of journalistic integrity on the internet.<br /></div> <div class="byline"><br /></div> <div class="byline">Darling's article highlights an issue of great concern in journalism today: accountability. His article scathingly criticizes the authors of Gawker and TechCrunch's false rumor articles, but also admits that rumors play a vital role in news. Darling doesn't address the value of being the first source for a story, the value of a <em>new</em> story. Newspapers have always had to balance immediacy of reporting with accuracy of storytelling, just as rumor sites do today. But, as Darling admits, "credibility may be a less-important strategy for the blogs at this stage," and time will tell whether they turn towards more accountability in reporting or not.<br /></div> <div class="byline"><br /></div> </p> http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/42882 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/42882 <p>Kramer, Joel. "Lessons I&rsquo;ve learned after a year running MinnPost." <em>Nieman Journalism Lab.</em> <span class="crimson">March 19, 2009.<br /></span></p> <p>This anecdotal article by Joel Kramer provides insight into some of the challenges to professional online journalism. His brief and readable story of running the online news site, MinnStar, addresses issues such as user commentary, video integration, and start-up costs.</p> <p>Kramer's most important point for my thesis is his process of screening user commentary with volunteer moderators. As he puts it, "We took plenty of heat from web-savvy readers for this decision. But as readers have watched the quality of comment on respected sites that don&rsquo;t require real names, many are now grateful for our approach. Recently we published our 7,000th comment. Some sites with looser standards appear to be reconsidering their no-holds-barred policies." This MinnStar policy may or may not be forward thinking, but it is an example of one version of user interaction with news sites. MinnStar doesn't use citizen journalism the way, say, TalkingPointsMemo, does, but according to Kramer, they are exploring possibilities. This demonstrates the lack of an industry standard for harnessing citizen journalists, but emphasizes the growing awareness for policies and methods for intertwining professional quality journalism and usergenerated content.</p> http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/653 http://tags.library.upenn.edu/makerecord/url/653 blog post and comments about future of library use (google, participation age vs. information age, etc)