It's Time to Start Paying

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The time has come… we are actually going to have to start paying for news. I know, you may be thinking, this is unbelievable! But really, did you ever think that the get-everything-for-free-with-the-click-of-a-button model of online news was sustainable? I didn’t. Regardless, it is time to face the facts,

“The era of newspapers giving away on the web what they charge for in print is supposedly coming to an end.”

The question that really arises is: how much are we willing to pay for news? Will we pay per story? Per topic? Will we subscribe to just the local news or just political reporting? Will we care enough to pay for the sensationalized bullshit that we poison our brains with currently? Would you pay a dollar to read a story about the status of Britney Spears’ mental health? I know some of you would…don’t kid yourselves.

“It's a mind trip, this repricing-the-news moment, because no one -- least of all newspeople -- knows what it's really worth. And that's because a lot of news -- possibly most news -- has little real value to the average consumer. Entertainment value sure (in the Garrido case, along the lines of a particularly chilling horror movie), but tangible value?”

This question of the “tangible value” of news is one that we have not had to ask ourselves as journalists in a long time. Being involved in the field of Journalism, we are some of the biggest news-junkies there are. So how much would we pay?

I know my response… I will pay the named price for good, solid reporting. Much like how I pay my 99 cents per song I download on iTunes. If the news websites want to charge for their content, I say go for it! I think we should have been paying for years now. However, I will not pay at all for “infotainment” and “faux news.” If it is that important or interesting, I’ll wait to read about it on twitter or someone’s blog.

This brings up another dilemma that arises with charging for online news. How much of it can we control and regulate so that every single story doesn’t end up retyped in someone’s blog? Will we have to start suing people for re-reporting information that has monetary value? Would this very blog post be subject to copyright issues for pasting sections of Dumenco’s article?

san francisco chronicle

the trip to the chronicle was very interesting for all of you that couldn't go...i've never seen so much clutter--there was stuff everywhere piled up, and there were the weirdest things on the walls. i didn't expect it to be like that, i don't think i could ever concentrate on writing in an environment like that, i would be too distracted. it seems to work for them though, there were a lot of people busy typing away to meet their deadlines. nanette was very nice and took us around the chronicle and to talk with some of the other writers. we talked to one of the editors in the datebook section who also wrote some feature stories. he talked about how a lot of newspapers don't like their editors to do any writing, they feel it's giving them too much power. i don't remember why but i guess he's an exception. another writer we talked to is specifically writes science stories. i thought that was interesting, i didn't realize there were so many areas that had specific people writing in them. like nanette writes stories dealing with school issues. if i ever were to become a journalist i would much rather write all different types of stories. but as the science writer was saying, since he was getting older he wanted to specialize in something so that it would be harder for him to be booted out of the paper. speaking of age, there was one writer in the science department that is almost 90 years old! that might have been the most surprising part of the trip! we also went to see the sf gate section of the chronicle. we talked to one man that was in charge of designing the website. he was said how important online media has become and said it would be beneficial for our generation to know a lot about it because it will most likely continue to grow as the main form of media of the future. i thought the trip was really interesting and i'm glad i went. there is just so much to be learned from observing people and talking to them about what they do.

threatening myspace messages

the story below is about someone that hacked into myspace and sent threatening messages to a group of students at petaluma high school. the messages said things like "im sick of all your shit..im going to school strapped..im beating the high score of 33." the person is obviously referencing the virgina tech shootings with that statement. this furthers my fears of how scary the internet can be. its scary how some computer genius somewhere knows how to hack into myspace. i dont know that much about all the hidden tricks of the internet but i know they exist...and its sometimes makes me nervous that people have that ability to hack into some high school kids myspace and send them threats. its just not okay! its annoying how things that start as just some fun, a way to communicate to friends, turns into a scary place where you have to really watch who you let be your friend and watch who your talking to online. i also feel like they will be able to track the messages to some degree, i know that police have ways of viewing myspace and actually keep track of certain people they are watching. i haven't found any updates to this story online, maybe someone else did? either way this was probably just some lonely kid asking for attention and using myspace to do it--which to me doesn't seem very smart because myspace can be tracked.

MySpace hacker posts menacing statements to Petaluma High students

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

(05-09) 09:18 PDT PETALUMA -- Someone hacked into the MySpace pages of several Petaluma High School students Tuesday night and posted statements on the networking Web site threatening to bring a gun to school today and kill people.

Police are asking parents, students and officials at Petaluma High School to help them identify the suspect today. Education officials said school remains in session, and there is extra police presence on campus.

The threats referenced April's deadly shootings at Virginia Tech, and warned students to stay home from school today.

Petaluma Police Sgt. Marty Frye said police sent out a "school alert" to employees and parents detailing the threats and stating that investigators do not know if it is valid.

According to the alert, the suspect wrote, "Listen up you people, I'm sick of all your s -- . Tomorrow I'm going to school strapped and none of you can do anything to stop me. I'm beating the high score of 33 thanks to you f -- ."

The person also went on to make additional statements in which they threatened to bring a gun to school and repeatedly referenced the Virginia Tech shootings, which left 33 people, including the shooter, dead.

Frye said it appears the suspect gained access to several Petaluma High School students' MySpace pages by hacking into the accounts and sent the messages without those people's knowledge.

Internet providers are cooperating with detectives and working to track down the origin of the messages, he added.

Petaluma City Schools deputy superintendent Steve Bolman said classes are continuing as normal.

"School is in session," he said. "We do have officers on campus, and students are being encouraged to stay in class."

the internet

i just read the e-mail from dr. robertson about the student that asked his/her name to be removed from the blog because of a stalker issue. i think this is a very interesting and important subject to talk about. are we putting ourselves at risk by being so open on the internet? i know speaking for myself, i have a facebook, myspace, and a blog...and even when you certain profiles on private, there are still ways for creepy people to find you and your information. i love being able to put my thoughts online for other people to read and i love communicating through online sites, but i wonder if one day it will come back to bite me like it did for that other student. the internet is just so huge, it connects so many peope and it really is an amazing invention, but as with most other things it has been corrupted. and it's sad that we have to worry about people tracking us down online but i think it is an important reality we all must realize and be careful about.

big story interviews

i definitely learned a little bit about stirring up some drama with my big story...which i really didn't predict! i don't normally like to make a scene or upset people, but i actually had fun doing so with this story. at first, it sort of upset me, especially when i went to interview professor barker-plummer and she refused to talk to me rudely saying my story was not appropriate and that my survey was not data. it sort of caught me of guard, i didn't know what to say to that. luckily, all of the other teachers were extremely nice and i didn't run into any other problems. i learned so much though, as most of them had some criticism for the way in which i was doing my story...atleast those teachers in the media studies dept. doing this story really showed me how much you can really learn by just sitting down and talking to people. i spent extra time just talking with professor kidd about numerous different issues that didn't even pertain to my story, what she had to say was just really interesting. i guess what i mainly took from the interviewing experience is that sometimes your going to have people that don't want to talk to you, and that's okay...you just have to suck it up and find someone better to talk to, which is exactly what i did.

Unwilling/Obnoxious Surveyers

I have had a really hard time getting students here at USF to take my surveys that I need for my big story. I never thought everyone would get so annoyed at the fact that they had to fill out a little survey. A lot of people did not take it seriously at all, and even wrote things like "I'm fat" or "Boring" next to the lines where they should have been numbering which majors were easiest/most difficult at USF. What was also interesting was how some people interpretted the instructions of the survey. Some people numbered the majors from 1 to 10, easiest to hardest, as I had intended. Other people gave each major a rating out of ten, like Politics and Physcology were both rated 9, and four of the majors rate 4, and Communications with a 1. Those students sort of scaled each major, so many of the majors had the same numbers next to them which kind of skrewed up my intentions for the results of the survey, but I figured out a way of still using that data. I never realized it would be so difficult to get people to take my survey seriously. So many people were just so annoyed that I had even asked to take up five minutes of their time. And then when they read the survey they responded with things like, "Oh my god I have to acually think?" or "Uuugh this is hard". It was sooooooo annoying. But anyways, I finally got all of my data organized, so thats good. Just in case you were curious, the students i surveyed percieve Communications to be the easiest major in the Arts & Sciences, then Exercise and Sport Science (which I highly disagree with because of all of the science and anatomy courses required, but I think since this is such an unknown major, many people assumed it was simple), the next easiest was said to be Media Studies. The hardest major was said to be Politics, and then closely following was Psychology. I thought the results were very interesting. I have talked to a few students in the Communications department that highly disagree, and really argue that Communications is waaayy harder than people think. On the other hand, students in the Media Studies area say that the major actually is really easy. I actually went through my surveys, and a number of people that listed their major as Media Studies put it as one of the easiest ones. I thought that was interesting. I don't know, overall I've had a fun but difficult time with this assignment. I really thought it would be easier to get the information I wanted than it was.

blogs being used on national news

I just read the blog "Madness on Campus" that tells the story of Kate throughout the whole Virginia Tech shooting and what exactly happened to her. I think that it is so great that the story formed part of the news special on TV. I think that as time progresses, more and more people will be using online blog systems to tell their stories, and also news media will use them more often. I thought his account of what happened was fairly good considering he seemed to have written the story only after talking to Kate breifly on the phone. It does seem a little strange that ABC would use material that wasn't necessarily factual, but I think this demonstrates how big of a shift we are seeing in how media is interconnected. One student writes a little blog about what happened, and it ended up on national television. I think it's great. I think it is important for people to get their opinions out like he did because useful information was obviously derived from his blog, so think of how many other situations could have used a little more insight into what happened.