Results tagged “Journalism” from eHub

Chances are you've already heard or read that journalism is dead.

Newspapers are going down the toilet, print is dying and journalists are losing their jobs.

Well, despite any numbers about the business of journalism, I happen to sincerely disagree with the statement that journalism is dead.

Journalism is changing, and of course, with its change will come a change in the business behind the journalism industry.

If people aren't buying newspapers anymore, advertisers need to look into online ads. If consumers are getting information from sites like Twitter or Facebook, news sources need to connect their names to Twitter accounts. The same is true for the business that keeps new sources running.

The business needs to adjust and that adaptation is beginning now.

The Online Journalism Blog has an interesting blog about how media business models need to change. In its change, the blog highlights three main ideas: (1) readers are worth less (or in other words, advertising is cheaper), (2) content is free and (3) the realization that you don't own the platform.

The biggest change in the journalism industry right now is that journalism is becoming a conversation. 10,000words.net blogger Mark S. Luckie constantly includes this idea in his thoughts.

Citizen journalism can help "real journalists" tell stronger stories with more accurate information.

I'm not getting a degree in journalism, and I don't know much about business. But I do know that the bigwigs who run news outlets need to recognize the change happening now and adjust.

I have a unique vantage point from which to view the transitions facing our industry. This semester I've worked as a graduate research assistant for Knight Chair in News, Leadership and Community, Pam Fine. This spring we conducted a time-use study with some of the top newspaper editors in the country.

The goal is to gain a better understanding of how these editors budget their time. Data is still coming in, but an incidental finding appears to be that many participants are spending increasing amounts of time dealing with organizational change--things like restructuring, finances, new technology, and staff training--and less time focusing on the production of news.

It certainly is an interesting time to conduct such a study: furloughs, layoffs, buyouts, belly-up. 
 
How are newspapers to survive? Two words: horizontal integration.
 
In order to survive, newspapers must recast themselves not as print outlets, but as media outlets. The method(s) by which a news outlet chooses to disseminate information becomes a strategic business decision, based on the needs of the target audience. Not just print, broadcast or online, a true multi-platform approach to provide readers information on their terms--in their preferred media formats.

It's an even more interesting time to be fresh out of college, looking to land that first job as a journalist. So, moving forward, what skills are required to be a successful journalist?

I interviewed CNN's Political Director and Senior Executive Producer of Political Programming, Sam Feist, to get his take on what skills journalists need to be competitive in today's media marketplace.

CNN's Sam Feist on skills journalists need from Josh Patterson on Vimeo.

And for those who can't adapt...

During my J500 Media and the Environment class  we learned a lot about urban farming.

We each were assigned a farmer to create a blog about and we also had to help on a podcast.

Talking with Ericka Wright about her farm, the Troostwood Youth Garden showed me that urban farming was all about adaptation. Her neighborhood has very little fresh food around and a lot of youth. She decided to start a garden in her own yard to feed her community and help educate the kids.

This is what journalism needs to do.

Adapt. Find new ways to present information. Become better at everything.

For a while I just considered myself a photographer. Then after working at the Kansan I considered myself a photojournalist. Now after learning about blogging, copy editing, video editing, dreamweaver, fireworks and podcasts I have the confidence to say that I am a journalist and I am proud.

I am the future of journalism. Adaptation and learning a little bit of everything

In summary, I reach a little deeper into my pocket because of my social convictions, because I know and trust the producers of certain products and because of the quality of the expensive product is just better. Those are three reasons that people should consider paying for great news service like that of the New York Times.

Millions of readers tune in to the New York Times every day. It is a trusted source that has only embraced the challenges of the advent of technology by treating their readers to videos, photos, slideshows, interactive graphics and audio. Currently, any reader with internet access can view these treasures for free. But is that the best idea for the company?

In Romanescko's last entry on PoynterOnline, he suggested this unique business model for the New York Times. He suggested that with just a $1 a month (or 3.3 cents a day) contribution from its visitors, the Times could earn $240 million in new annual revenue. 

In this age of struggling newspapers, Romanescko's plan may be more than a business model for the Times, it may be a lifeline.

So, in conclusion, I want to say--why not? Shouldn't we be willing to pay for the press that is the best of the best? I know that it's worth it to me. I'll make the small sacrifice to enjoy the freedom of having a press that I can trust.  If my 3.3 cents a day protects transmission of knowledge, and therefore democracy, than I am game. 

In a week, I will walk down the hill as a graduate of the University of Kansas with a journalism degree.  I know I should be proud of my accomplishment, but lately I've been asking myself: How much is a journalism degree worth these days?

I was going to write a blog on the importance of convergence as we enter a new age of journalism. You know, that's supposed to be the business of journalism these days. Breaking news. Post updates to the Web. Incorporate video into your story packages. Accomplish more work, yet do it all in the same number of hours as before you had all the work. Oh yeah, and for the same pay. Sometimes, even for less pay. And with fewer staffers. 

While many lament the way we as a society seemingly have devolved into 140-character "tweets" on Twitter, there is credible information coming from some of those tweets. They come in the form of links to other news organizations or people who find and post useful stories.

I see Twitter as a way to pool links from several Web sites into one easily accessible and manageable page. If you don't want to see Ashton Kutcher's latest TwitPic of Demi Moore's butt, you don't have to. And while there are useful and useless elements to this newfound social networking world, that is one thing I think is fairly useful. You pick what you want to read and see. And discard the rest. 

You can also follow journalists and stay in the know, tracking other news organizations. You can track outlets such as the New York Times or the Lawrence Journal-World.

Heck, I even use Twitter to follow all stories posted involving the Chicago White Sox on the MLB.com Web site. 

But the topic Mike posed for this class was "why journalists shouldn't ignore Twitter and Facebook."

So, I wanted to get a take on this from someone who actively uses Twitter in his reporting. I spoke on the phone with Alex Parker, a former KU graduate student in the J-School who now works as a reporter in Chicago for the Chi-Town Daily News. 

"I first heard about Twitter when I was working in PR, and one of my colleagues told me about it," Parker said, "and I thought it was the dumbest thing ever."

But when Parker moved to Lawrence for graduate school and began working part-time as a reporter for the Lawrence Journal-World, he discovered that Twitter allowed him to grow a network of people in the area. And that allowed him to pose questions to them.

"They weren't specific questions," Parker said, "but I would ask, 'Has anybody had trouble getting on the bus,' or,  'What do you think of the idea of tax money going towards to T?' And I would get responses. It gave me the opportunity to open up a dialogue with them. These are people that live in the community and they're part of my online community. I don't think I've ever met the majority of them face to face."

Parker said there are distinct differences between the social networking Web sites Facebook and Twitter. Facebook primarily is used as a means to keep in contact with friends, to take quizzes and post photographs. While Twitter can be used to talk to friends, it can serve as something much more valuable. 

1. Parker said, "Twitter brings you closer to the community. It gives people incentive to follow you because they get a glimpse of who you are, beyond being a reporter. It tears down the wall of a byline, shows you to be a real person and creates a sense of community, even if it's a virtual one."

2. Parker continued by saying, "If journalism is to remain relevant, news organizations need to realize the power of the community, and not ignore what regular people are saying. Today, a reporter is the best marketing tool a news organization can have. When the public trusts a reporter and gets to know him or her, even virtually, it gives people incentive to read and become engaged."

The debate as to whether Twitter should be used as a means for reporting rages on. Garry Trudeau, the creator of the Doonesbury comic strip, says journalists who post on Twitter are being narcissistic and that some "are so smitten with the idea of a personal broadcasting system that the absence of meaningful content to broadcast doesn't seem to concern them."

His entire interview, posted earlier this week, can be found here.

Trudeau continued to shred the notion that journalists ought to solicit followers for questions or answers via Twitter.

"You're supposed to be professionals," Trudeau said. "Do pilots and surgeons ask for suggestions?

"If you can't think of a few good questions, you and your producer are in the wrong business. It's not about getting fresh, out-of-the-bubble perspectives, as they would argue: most questions sent in are obvious or inane. It's really about flattering the followers, populist pandering."

Trudeau notwithstanding, I think many people find Twitter more useful than useless. Twitter is what you make of it. There are plenty of people who personally broadcast either their favorite ice cream or "exemplary parenting skills," as Trudeau says. But there are plenty of useful gems to be found if you take the time to sift through the garbage.

Reading a recent article by Brian Solis about how social media Web sites such as Twitter and Facebook have changed the face and outlook of journalism made me think about how often I have seen articles on Twitter in the past month. It seems like every day I see another headline about how Twitter is blowing up. But journalists need to quit writing about Twitter's popularity and start taking advantage of it.

Some of my friends who are not on Twitter keep telling me the same thing: "I just don't understand the point of it."

Now, these people are not journalism majors and therefore might not be as inclined to use and love Twitter, but I always defend Twitter in response to their remarks.

I think that Twitter is a great way for people to read social news and to get factual and legitimate information through following news sites. By adding themselves to Twitter, news sites can help themselves to get information out to people in a way that consumers want it: conveniently in one location.

Blogging

Some journalists seem to be scared lately that bloggers will take over their jobs with the content they come up with and then put out on the Web for all to see. But really, I don't see why.

I mean, think about it. What would bloggers have to blog about without the news they get from news sites? Bloggers would become the new town criers. They might occasionally hear of newsworthy events that they'd post, but without any journalism training, their information would not really appear as legitimate.

Johnathan Bailey from Plagiarism Today wrote on bloggingtips.com five things that bloggers can learn from journalism school, which I guess as a person who has never taken journalism classes would be very helpful. But still, bloggers will never have the same finished product as a good journalist.

Journalist and blogger Mark S. Luckie wrote a good blog about "Why J-Schools matter." They definitely do matter and show the difference in the quality of blogs put out on the Web today.

As Brian Solis says in his entry, "Content becomes a social object that inspires communication and action." I also agree with him when he says that good journalism will always be upheld. It will be what inspires bloggers to talk about.

Money

It's interesting that Solis brings up the idea that news sites may one day charge their readers to read the news. I understand that the Internet will change and evolve with time, but part of the beauty of the World Wide Web is its accessibility.

When I  read over the idea that Solis addressed, I couldn't help myself say "bleh" out loud. I think that if this were to happen, less people are going to be inclined to read the news. I can foresee a jump back to print if that is what happens. 

Solis also addresses ads, which is an interesting topic. It is definitely, as he says, disappearing from the print side. 

I think that digital ads are going to take over even more so than they already have because of the capabilities they can have. Consumers, if interested, can click and go directly to the business, ads can have and animation, and size isn't as big as an issue on the Web.

Mashable.com has an interesting blog about online ads. Jennifer Van Grove discusses how lately ads have been noticeable on YouTube videos.

Statusphere is ultimate way to share news

Again, I agree with Solis that RSS feeds on news sites are on their way out. There will be more "Share this" options in which consumers can tweet about stories or share them on Facebook, etc.

Social media sites allow for people to get all information in one personalized spot. It saves time, and it lets consumers pick and choose what they want to read. 

Is this bad for journalism? Yes and no. Of course, it's a little sad that more stories are probably not going to be read as much. But it's also great for journalism because with all of the changes happening now, it's a fresh start. WIth all of the sites that monitor Twitter trends, it will be easier for journalists and news sites to figure out what people are reading, what they respond to and why. 

Right now is a weird transitional phase in journalism, but I only see things getting better as journalist figure out how to incorporate social media sites into their profession.

After learning about Twitter, I was skeptical of its use.  I wondered, why did people need to constantly let others know what they were doing at any given moment?  The whole idea seemed very self-involved.  Reluctantly, I joined Twitter and began choose a list of people to "follow."

After navigating through the site for awhile, the reason for the popularity of Twitter became clear.  Twitter is not merely an online diary of sorts, but a mode of mass communication and idea exchange.

In a recent article, Brian Solis discusses how social media is not only changing the meaning of journalism, but of journalists themselves.  Tweeting from the courtroom or the ball game humanizes journalists.  Instead of delivering information through a formal medium, journalists can disseminate quick facts through channels available to anyone with access to a computer and the Internet.

In a class I took a few semesters ago called "Rhetoric, Politics, and Mass Media," my professor defined mass media as, "Individuals or institutions who use technological means to communicate biased information to large numbers of people who have little to no immediate feedback channels."  After thinking it over, I agreed with the definition.  With traditional media, the only feedback a person has is to call a news station or write a letter to the editor of a newspaper.  These methods are hardly immediate.  Social media sites such as Twitter allow people to instantly respond to a news update or story posting. 

This type of journalism is preferable because it serves exactly who it is supposed to serve - the people.  Furthermore, the more people who are involved in the news reporting process and the more people who exchange differing ideas, the more democratic the process becomes.  This should be something to celebrate, for isn't it the purpose of journalism in the first place? 

Yesterday, a top-read article on Time.com caught my eye. A book, "A Brief History of the Future" by Jacques Attali, predicts what the world will look like in 2050. Among the more exciting prognostications -- multinational corporations controlling everything, roving bands of pirates -- is one that seems obvious now. By 2050, dead-tree journalism as we know it will be dead.

I had a discussion with my mother about newspapers when I was home last. I explained to her that media groups hadn't quite mastered the money-making aspect of the online world quite yet, but when they did, there would be no looking back. We mourn print newspapers out of nostalgia and the feeling of holding something tangible in our hands. In reality, though, good writing (and editing, photography, etc.) is good writing regardless of where it's printed. The idea of the Web (even, ahem, Kansan.com) as a digital dumping ground for stories "unworthy" of print consideration irks me.

Journalism will survive even if newspapers don't. It may even be stronger for it. Another thing I explained to my mother was that, despite all the noise online, the excellent journalism will eventually rise to the top and the market will correct itself. People demand good products, and the strongest and best and most-adapted will survive. There's a reason that the world's best newspaper has steadily shifted to become the world's best newspaper online (referring of course to the New York Times).

Brian Solis' article about social media's role in journalism hits on the major strength of sites like Twitter and Facebook -- instant feedback. You can see, in real time, what people care about and what they're talking about. Web site hits, most-e-mailed lists, comments and tweets measure reader interest and participation in ways that print journalism just can't. Not only do journalists see quantitative audience measures, but readers can also make their wishes known without having to sit down and write out a letter to the editor.

Journalists can take this feedback and turn around immediately and respond to it, covering what their audience explicitly asks them to. To ignore what laypeople are talking about -- in some cases, notably on CNN, laypeople ARE the journalists -- is to blow a hole through your own foot.

During all the crazy Student Senate election happenings, a student has to have a haven, a hideaway, on campus. For me, Stauffer Flint Hall, home to the KU School of Journalism, is that place.
Although it's the hub of campus news and information, most of the people here are concerned with and committed to providing unbiased information to the student body. We aren't politicians. We're journalists.
That doesn't mean we don't have our own opinions. In fact, journalists often have some of the most rooted, firm and passionate opinions of anyone because they are "in the know" and stay abreast of the news. But it's not our job to tell you what we think or why you should think this or that way.
It's our job to inform, to be trusted sources of information and to keep our mouths shut. This is often a difficult task, and let's just be honest -- between journalists, we do discuss our opinions. But it's vital that we remain balanced in our reporting of the news.

This is why Stauffer Flint is my shelter from the wicked hatred (exaggeration) and Greeks v. Greeks, Greeks v. GDI, Greeks v. Everybody controversies (not an exaggeration).

Poking around on the Web, I've found that some of the better interactive sites are actually not news sites.

If the New York Post committed any offense when it published this cartoon, it was chiefly the crime of not being funny, clever or satirical at all.

Most people who know me fairly well at the Kansan know that I have one journalistic love that comes before the Web -- copy editing. I had a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing internship last summer at The Indianapolis Star and will complete a second editing internship this summer at The Columbus Dispatch. I edited the Kansan last semester and edit the opinion page and special sections as needed this semester.

I came to editing by accident. Throughout high school, I was a reporter through and through. A triple major and a year in England kept me from reporting for the Kansan, and also kept me from getting the clips necessary to get a reporting internship at a paper. I took the Dow Jones exam in October 2007 for the purpose of getting an internship -- a good one. I wasn't even in Journalism 419 yet, but I took the practice exams and got the gig at the Star.

When I received my internship, I quickly found out that most people have no clue what a copy editor does. Most of my friends and family think of it as fancy proofreading. I can't remember how many times people I know praised "the sports writers" at newspapers for clever headlines, when the praise should've been directed at the copy desk.

I can't write enough about what attracts me to editing or why I love it, but I can share some experiences. Today, I judged copy editing for KSPA regionals, flipping through a story that earnest high school journalists inked up for their contest entries. A few gems stood out -- removing an inflammatory quote, catching a tricky spelling error, knowing quote attribution. Most were a disappointment. Some students left a completely inappropriate quote in the story, and all but maybe three missed that World War II was fought in the 1940s, not the 1950s. Eek.

I have hopes that many of these high school students will stick with editing, especially the clearly talented ones. God knows we need all the good ones we can get, and I'm thankful that programs like Dow Jones encourage young journalists to see other careers in journalism besides reporting. 

To close, I'll leave you with two articles that express my unease with the industry better than I can. The first, from last June, is an elegy for copy editing as we know it. The second, published on the American Copy Editors Society site, admonishes those in the industry who'd outsource editing to places like India.

Happy editing. 

Not unlike the "25 things about me" Facebook phenomenon, the J694 blog entry topic on how we've all spent our day has caught on, and I'm using that topic in my blog entry for today. So, without further ado, here is my (journalism-filled) Thursday.

1. Luckily, my first Thursday class (this one, in fact) begins at 9:30, allowing me to sleep off the alcohol-fueled partying of the night before. By alcohol-fueled partying, I really mean night editing The Kansan until 12:30 a.m., then coming home and passing out.

2. In the online reporting class, I blush profusely as Kansan.com is praised while the LJ World and the Missourian are trashed in the weekly critique. I spent a week of slave labor at the Missourian last summer and have no love for it whatsoever.

3. After class ends, I meet with my group to go over our diabolical Web scheme, which I'm hoping will eventually entail espionage and cocktails. We make a game plan, the details of which I won't share here.

4. I have enough time to drop off my heavy items in the Box (i.e. the office I share with three other managing editors aka girls) and run upstairs to my magazine design class. This is a class I'm enjoying more as it goes on. The final product is an actual magazine prototype that we can use in interviews and submit in competition. My magazine is called Expedition, and it's a travel magazine for students loosely inspired by Budget Travel.

5. Magazine class ends, and it's off to the daily critique. I can't believe I missed the kicker error, the brief text error, the design mess-ups and the Associate Press byline style. Mentally berating myself, I pick up my books and head upstairs to Ethics.

6. I have to give a presentation in ethics about professional codes I've researched. I chose McGraw-Hill and Microsoft. Microsoft's code of ethics says nothing about global domination or evil; I'm suspicious.

7. When class finally ends, I head to the Underground to get some breadsticks so I don't pass out from low blood sugar. I e-mail my mother so she knows I'm still alive, and begin doing some busy work, like sending out that day's Web critique and getting my Cracked fix. Today's list is "If Valentine's Day Cards Told the Truth."

8. 4 p.m. meeting time. I listen as the campus and sports desks lay out their pages, secretly wondering if/how often the stacks will change before I leave for the night. I fill in the Web budget and tack it on the copy board.

9. We order in pizza before the Thursday reporting budget meetings. Mmm pizza.

10. It's budget meeting time. I take notes on each story and speak briefly with the Web staff about possible ideas. Occasionally I laugh at a glib comment made by McGeeney. When the meeting ends, I go back to the office, type out a few e-mails, hope people get back to me, and head out the door.

11. My roommate mentioned that her boyfriend would be spending the night, and I immediately notice evidence that he's there -- the damn toilet seat is up.

On the cusp of graduation, I find myself looking about anxiously like a cornered animal, looking for a clear path to escape the approaching menace that is the real world.

Oh don't worry, this isn't another "woe is me" tirade from a 20-something who's waking up to the thought of a life without beer-pong.

No, I'm a 30-something entrepreneur who went back to school to finish a degree in something I'm confident will be a fruitful and enjoyable career. I'm ready to graduate. I'm ready to take life by the horns again, this time armed with a diploma and a mission. I'm just having a few jitters at the prospect of giving up life as I know it, the safety net of friends and family - moving away from a town that's comfortable, affordable and enjoyable. It's home.

It's enough to make one think about settling in, buying a house here in Lawrence while the market is soft. I could make this place I've grown so comfortable in my home base for a freelance career. In the meantime, I could also focus on a few of the start-up ideas that have been simmering in the back of my head.

Or, diploma in hand, I could throw caution to the wind and dash headlong into an industry that's hemorrhaging jobs and cutting salaries right and left.

Now you see my dilemma.

To compound the issue, I'm only one of the thousands of young journalists graduating this year, looking to enter a really scary market. It's enough to make you want to curl up in the fetal position and wait it out.

And then, in the midst of searching for job openings, I ran across a story I had to check out.

At 37, the Chairman, Product Architect and CEO of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk is a bit of a hero of mine. Seriously, this guy makes me feel like a total underachiever, wondering what I've done with my life.

With billions in the bank from the sale of PayPal, which he co-founded during the dot-com explosion, this guy has the money and the smarts to do just about anything he sets out to. So when I discovered that his next big venture was to start a commercial space exploration company, I simply shrugged and said, "of course, why not? After all, when everything this world has to offer is within your reach, what's next but to colonize Mars?

After hearing about Musk's latest and most ambitious project yet, I remembered that nothing worth doing in life is easy. The world is smaller than we think and big ideas can translate to big lives. With that thought, the anxiety began to abate. Then I read this article, which shared the best advice Musk had ever been given: "Don't panic."

It wasn't long before excitement and ambition had once again taken anxiety's place. While I may not be launching car companies or rockets to international space stations, I've got an amazing life ahead of me and only five months to get ready for it. There are some big decision to make, and I'm done panicking.

It's time to dig in.

According to a recent Pew Internet report, the number of adults using social networking Web sites such as Facebook and Myspace has more than quadrupled in the past four years. Though this has put countless teenagers in an extremely awkward position, the increase is a good thing for young journalists, presenting exciting new opportunities as these sites become more functional in convergent media presentations.

Though the media have already been experimenting with using social networking sites for news events, such as last year's presidential race, the sites have generally been used to represent the voice of America's youth. This comes with good reason, as the Pew report shows that 65 percent of online American teens use these sites.

But the rapid increase in adult users means that when the media use data from social networking Web sites, it does not just represent young people; it speaks for everyone. And this will only become more accurate in the future, as the number of adult users continues to grow.

The use of social networking sites will allow multimedia news organizations to enhance their presentations. News Web sites are currently able to instantly provide audio, photo and video to users, but social networking sites have the potential provide even more: the opinions, ideas and reactions of millions of people.

Last Tuesday, CNN used Facebook's Connect feature, which allows Facebook users to include their profile data on other Web sites, in its coverage of the presidential inauguration with great success.

If the CNN staff wanted to, they could use the Facebook Lexicon program to follow up with information on how the public has reacted to President Barack Obama's first few days in office. Since January 20, his sentiment score has been more than 80 percent, meaning that out of all conversations on Facebook mentioning President Obama, 80 percent spoke of him favorably.

Social networking sites will allow journalists to incorporate their audience into news coverage more than ever before, and allow the the public to see how the people around them feel about what is going on the world. To me, that is something to be excited about.

 

This is not a time to cry.

This is not a time to bemoan the death of journalistic innocence.

This is the time to celebrate the coming of age of the University of Kentucky photographers!

These boys, nay, CADILLACS of JOURNALISM went through the Bar Mitzvah of the reporter at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.  After getting bathed with mace (the wet t-shirt contest of the professional journalist), the boys were whisked away and imprisoned for three days on trumped-up charges of gross misdemeanor rioting.  Alongside them were real professional journalists, doing what real professional journalists do. In this case, they were trying to cover a (supposedly) public event.

No longer are these photographers fresh-faced children.  No, they have become something more.  They are steely-eyed, gravely-voiced JOURNALISTS.  They have gone through the trials and tribulations of the professional reporter and emerged none the worse for wear.

The torture of the journalist is what makes the profession what it is.  We desire to inform the public above all else; above our safety, above our comfort, and oftentimes above our own best interest.

This is why we should exult in the pain of canceled interviews and calls unreturned.  We should bathe ourselves in the pleasure of police interference and crooked politicians.  We should scream in ecstasy when battered by overzealous riot officers.  We should get a hidden satisfaction from sitting in prison cells for no specific reason.  All these things remind us why we report.  The work is hard and the trials are many, but we persevere because we are journalists.  Seek the truth and report it.

I do realize there is an inherent sexism to this post.  I apologize to any and all offended parties. 

Very sneaky, Uncle Rick. Asking us whether the Web will replace sports journalists, when we're still struggling to define "the Web" and "journalists" (and maybe even "sports").

Let's say the Web is compared to a non-stop flight between the fans (in New York) and their favorite star athlete/team (in Lawrence, Kan.) with sports journalism just being that inconvenient stopover in Connecticut.

Well, then, Barry Bonds is innocent (according to Barry Bonds).

And there was never anything rotten in Durham since in 1,295 press releases, the first ones to address the lacrosse controversy were on April 11, 2007, when the players were cleared of all charges (according to the official Duke Athletics website). Of course, anyone just following the situation on the Duke website might be a little bit confused by these sudden victorious posts, as nothing about the situation was mentioned earlier.

But at least, little Tom can talk directly with Ben Gordon on his MySpace, or if that's not enough, he can follow BG on his personal website.

And if, by chance and not wishing anything bad to come to him, Gordon does screw up, I am sure that he will use both of these outlets to accurately report all sides of the story.

Here come the journalists (aka the stopover in Connecticut where there's probably five inches of snow and one hour turns into four…).

Are journalists really as inconvenient as all that? In an age where all relevant statistical information on a team can readily be found on their site, the commentary of the players can be found on their sites and Digger Phelps is hailed for his opinion, why does sports journalism still exist?

Because a huge part of sport is opinion. And passion. And rumors. And bashing Missouri. What does all that sound like? I'll give you a hint: it starts with a "b" and rhymes with "Phog."

Someone once made a case that bloggers are journalists, too. And bloggers are doing a pretty good job of sharing commentary and opinion and passion and rumors and bashing MU. They even set up interviews and exchange opinions with other bloggers as was the case with Rock Chalk Talk and Bring on the Cats prior to the KU-KState matchup at Allen West. Sometimes this "amateur" commentary is even more enlightened than that of paid professionals *cough*ESPN*cough*.

Sports journalism isn't going away. It's just changing like all other aspects of media. And just like sports has been on the cutting edge of new media in the past, it still is today.

Of course, if I want to know what time the game is on Saturday, I'll go to kuathletics.com. But if I want to know if anyone else thinks the ‘Hawks looked a little sluggish against Colorado, I'll read Mark Dent or any one of the seven blogs on kusports.com or any one of the 774,000 on Google.

So maybe the new sport journalism isn't like that inconvenient stopover in Connecticut, maybe it's more like getting on the plane and finding out that everyone else is also a fan of your favorite team.

P.S. Google search "MU Tigers blogs" - there are only 214,000.