The Crane & The Cathedral
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Participatory Journalism
I know you're all chomping at the bit (not) to know how my class is going. However, I'm not going to put too many details here since my students know my blog and we don't want them reading too much about themselves:) But one thing that this class is allowing me to do is some in-depth comparison of online US and Spanish media. Since I'm always looking for references and examples from here, I've gotten to see and think a lot about the differences. For the next few weeks we're looking at participatory journalism and I spent way too much time last week making a little comparison chart of which online news sources offer what kinds of options for participation. I looked at the NY Times, the BBC, El País (biggest paper in Spain) and La Vanguardia (biggest paper in Catalonia) and the clear clear loser is...New York Times. Out of the four, the NYT is the only one that doesn't have discussion forums, doesn't let readers upload or suggest new items, you still can't personalize your home page (although that's coming) etc. etc. Basically, all you can do is write letters to the editor or comment on blogs. Maybe this isn't surprising, since in my humble opinion this is NOT a progressive paper despite the hype. Look at what the BBC is doing--they have a whole section where readers can upload photos or videos on newsworthy items, or El País, where there is a section called participation where readers can ask questions in interviews, etc. etc. So even though I've discovered that people do drive and get married here, progressive is as progressive does, when it comes to participation, we have a long way to go. And, incidentally, not only are cars much smaller, but there are also gas stations that offer biodiesel throughout the country. Not just the hippies, it's a way of life.
I know you're all chomping at the bit (not) to know how my class is going. However, I'm not going to put too many details here since my students know my blog and we don't want them reading too much about themselves:) But one thing that this class is allowing me to do is some in-depth comparison of online US and Spanish media. Since I'm always looking for references and examples from here, I've gotten to see and think a lot about the differences. For the next few weeks we're looking at participatory journalism and I spent way too much time last week making a little comparison chart of which online news sources offer what kinds of options for participation. I looked at the NY Times, the BBC, El País (biggest paper in Spain) and La Vanguardia (biggest paper in Catalonia) and the clear clear loser is...New York Times. Out of the four, the NYT is the only one that doesn't have discussion forums, doesn't let readers upload or suggest new items, you still can't personalize your home page (although that's coming) etc. etc. Basically, all you can do is write letters to the editor or comment on blogs. Maybe this isn't surprising, since in my humble opinion this is NOT a progressive paper despite the hype. Look at what the BBC is doing--they have a whole section where readers can upload photos or videos on newsworthy items, or El País, where there is a section called participation where readers can ask questions in interviews, etc. etc. So even though I've discovered that people do drive and get married here, progressive is as progressive does, when it comes to participation, we have a long way to go. And, incidentally, not only are cars much smaller, but there are also gas stations that offer biodiesel throughout the country. Not just the hippies, it's a way of life.
