After watching the BlogHer convention on journalism in Second Life, I feel that it is not necessary, however it could be useful to Second Life users. The news media serves the same function “In world” as it does in real life, however the news is limited to what is happening “in world” and therefore, far less substantial. This is not to say that Second Life journalists do not abide by the same rules that traditional journalists do, but they can only write stories about what happens to an avatar “in world” or simply replicate news from the real world because it has already happened.
Writing as a journalist in Second Life would not be easy because you have to look hard to write a story. The journalists in the panel said establishing a network of friends is crucial to finding stories, but the stories are only interesting to avid Second Life users. I don’t believe using “in world” abilities such as teleporting can supersede real world news because we have an AP and now citizen journalists and YouTube so news and information is already disseminated to the public almost instantaneously. Also, when watching the BlogHer event I noted maybe a quarter of the seats were filled so advantages such as attending conventions that you normally would not be able to “in world” are not being utilized much. This was also very notable at the Newt Gingrich speech which took place “in world.”