From the J132 blog
By Laura Rheinheimer
In the 10:30 Journalism 132 class, we are honing our search skills, to say the least. Certainly everyone didn't come into the class knowing the ins and outs of, say, Alexa, but we all have a bit of knowledge on the giant search engine, Google.
As Professor Stephen Greene has said repeatedly, Google is "almost good enough." This is true. Consider you have a story to write that is due on Sunday. You slacked and didn't make all the necessary calls during the week when offices were open and sources for the story were available. You have one piece of information on the story. Can you google an entire story without ever having talked to sources? If the answer is yes, we are truly doomed and there's really no need for journalists. Fine, I'll admit it. This happened to me this week. I have an "almost good enough" story that was done almost purely from googling the specifics of the story and using notes from a previous story for the rest. I won't turn it in, though. Nobody will ever see it. "Almost good enough" is not good enough for a journalist.
I, for one, appreciate our painful quizzes on Internet searching. The Internet has undoubtedly made the work of a journalist easier, but as a result, more is expected of us. We must be able to search under pressure if we want to meet these demands. This is in addition to the time-tested method of "GOYA" that journalists live by ("get off your ass" meaning get out there and talk to people).
The invasion of the bloggers (I include myself in this insinuating term) has led to a new paradigm for journalists. The problem is that everyone is online. Every opinion, every issue, every side can be found on the Internet. You can take a position, no matter how illogical and ridiculous, and find sources to back it up on the Internet. An article in the College Hill Independent, an indy weekly publication by Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design students, stated, "It's amazing how the Internet lets all the crazy people find one another and combine knowledge and speculation."
How true it is.
Take a subject. Any subject. One that personally offends me is Holocaust denial. Look to The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust to discover why the Holocaust was just a ploy to rally support for the Jews, but never really happened.
Another favorite is Creationism. You can find all the "scientific" evidence you need from sources found online. And pretty pictures to match, courtesy of Google Images.
According to the Institute for Creation Research’s John Morris, Ph.D. (a degree issued by Bob Jones University, I’m sure), the earth’s geologic strata was created during the great flood of Noah, not over millions of years of sediments accumulating under water as geologists generally conjecture.
I’m not knocking Google. It’s great. It has masked my procrastination and laziness on several occasions (barely). More than that, it has served as a way to bring people together, make information available and generally enlighten mankind. I was appalled when I found a young man in London who didn’t know how to go online. I promptly set him up with an e-mail account and tricks of the trade on surfing the Net.
"Being able to find things on the Internet used to be a nice skill to have, but how it's becoming more and more of a necessity," Greg Hughes said.
Who is Hughes? I don't know. I found him when I googled the term, "google master." However, I liked what he had to say, so I’ll make him a credible source. After poking around his blog, I can cite him as "Greg Hughes, a technology and security writer." Alright, maybe this guy is alright, but the point is not moot.
The point is a cautionary one. I think "Google Master" is a valuable, essential skill to have, but it does not serve as a replacement for real, investigative journalism. GOYA.
I've expolited this opportunity to provide a link to my blog. Also, I encourage everyone to push for having JMC sever space available to students to create Web sites.
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