Blogs Have a Positive Impact on Journalism
Posted on December 2, 2005
Bill Thompson, a technology analyst and a commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital, is also teaching an online journalism class at City University. He has his students busy created weblogs this week. In an article for the BBC Thompson says that blogs are changing journalism for the better. He also says journalists have to get used to the changes that are taking place.
My students have to get used to this. They have to engage with their readers in a way that respects the shared values of the online world.It sounds like a great class. More from Bill Thompson can be found on his website and on his blog, The BillBlog.They have to get used to being harshly criticised and dissected by those who disagree with them, and they have to accept that sometimes the people reading their work will know more about the subject than they do and may have a valuable contribution to make to their thinking.
At a later stage, they'll need to come to terms with Flickr and the other photo-sharing sites, and the way that any event attended by large numbers of people effortlessly generates its own online community, with hundreds of photos linked by common tags.