Here It Goes Again

My name is Caleb Sommerville. I am a recently-graduated journalist from KU, and looking to start a life here in Kansas City. This blog will just be my rantings and ravings, reviews and reactions to the world around me.

I just got married on July 4th to a very beautiful woman, and am now starting up our home in Kansas City, furnished with an odd combination of college stuff and brand-new wedding presents.

And I'm still job-searching. The market isn't the best these days, and the journalism field is no exception.

But here's what people don't understand, and what I wanted my first post to be about.

It's odd, because the media are the ones furthering this myth, but journalism is NOT dying. The fact that this post exists online for you all to read it is proof. Newspapers are NOT going to go away; people are NOT going to get their news solely from YouTube, TMZ, and Jon Stewart; and journalism is NOT dying.

But it is changing.

The bigger papers are suffering, no doubt. And that's probably why this myth is progressing. They are suffering because they can't keep up with the new technology. They can't adapt new policies as fast as the little papers, and suffer because of it.

The new trend, as Wired magazine called it in issue 17.06, is the new Socialism. (Read the article, it's quite good.)

Not Obama's ideas, but the whole idea of Social Media. Facebook, Web 2.0, YouTube comments and ratings, that kind of thing.

The new trend is to still have news outlets let out news, but to have the audience weigh in, rate, and therefore shape what kind of news is let out.

But there are definitely two sides to this new idea.

1. The audience must own up to the mistakes the Internet has encouraged for years. Bad comments, inane comments, apathy, grammar nazis, comparing everything to Nazis. We as a consuming audience must treat the content flying at us as important and sift through it as such. Don't get your news solely from the MSN.com start page that IE8 came preloaded with. Go out there, go to the AP wire feeds, CNN.com, FOXnews.com, drudgereport.com, all of it. Read articles from Food Network, Wired, Popular Science, Cracked.com, and get your information and entertainment from a variety of sources.

And above all, help shape it. Comment (intelligently, please) on articles you find yourself thinking more about. Post things to your facebook feed and find out what your friends think.

2. The content providers must be able to listen to the crowd and pull out the true feedback from the sea of "First!!!!!11!"s and "you need to lern how 2 spel"s. People supplying the information, whether it be news or entertainment, need to know that their work is going to be seen and consumed by people everywhere via the Internet. I know that most people think that local newspaper information about Podunkville, Wisconsin's city hall meeting is not important, but the little old lady living down the street who has a nephew living there might. I have been a reporter, fellow reporters out there. I know the wonderful feeling of sitting through a long boring meeting and then racing to get a 10 inch story out of nothing that will most likely be read by four people.

But we as providers need to realize that those four people wouldn't have that information otherwise.

So basically, providers, start caring about your jobs. Listen to the comments. If you are writing too many articles about Paris Hilton and the commenters let you know that, then stop and write about someone else. Or, heaven forbid, keep writing if they like it (I'll post about celebrity worship at a later date).

The industry is not going to be the Humphrey Bogart Deadline U.S.A. romantic reporter with the press card badge stuck in the fedora.

Although I wouldn't mind that.

It's going to be sifting through comments, commenting, and PARTICIPATING in this new Socialism.

I will be doing my best to listen to all comments on this blog (from the tens of readers I'm sure will be reading this) and shape the content from that.

Let me know what you think.