This I Believe

As I have mentioned, this blog exists in order to fulfill a class assignment. I always like to mention that even though this is a requirement, I do plan on keeping this going after I finish my program. It's my way of letting you readers know that my heart is behind this work, even though I'm doing it as a requirement.

This week we've been set to articulate belief, an opportunity rarely afforded to most journalists. These things are left to the editorial pages, and in my humble opinion even those lack in any real human emotion. Because editorials are, ideally, still a form of journalism.

But NPR, in all its brilliance, allows listeners to contribute their beliefs, without the underlying idea that this should be based on the news or any research. Just beliefs.

This was fun to write, but also difficult. There were aspects of the story left out that I wish I could include, as well as anecdotes and other characters. but in the spirit of NPR's This I Believe I'm keeping it short.

So here is my own contribution about my experiences at the Seattle Public Library. Listen to it at the following link, or if you prefer, read it below.

Music and libraries

My parents regularly encouraged me to focus my interests on something more career oriented. But in high school and through my undergraduate education, despite getting a “practical” degree in psychology, I subconsciously decided that I really to learn about the history music.

I sought this education outside of the traditional methods, and since I did not have the financial ability to acquire music at a rate to keep my hunger satisfied, I turned to the library, an educational sanctuary from my large, chaotic family crammed into a small house.

At the library my fingers endlessly flipped through CDs and records, scanning names that I loved, names that I recognized but never heard and hopefully the unusual gem that catches my eye and somehow leads me to a musical realm I could not imagine.

A man in his mid-thirties worked at our local library, and became a close ally in my effort to absorb every possible kind of sound. It started at first as he scanned through my stack of 10 to 20 CDs and LPs occasionally pausing and letting out a small inquisitive grunt or hum.

But soon the pauses turned to conversations, questions and recommendations. As I leafed through Miles Davis, The Beatles and Elvis Costello, he slowly guided me towards John Coltrane, The Zombies, and Television.

Soon after I did not look forward to the albums I would bring home, but the brief conversations I would have with the pony-tailed librarian. I started spending more and more time at the library; on the occasional week I would go there every day.

Many times I would keep my interests secret, hoping that the selection of a Charles Mingus or Eric Dolphy album would impress him. I wanted to prove to him that not only did I take his recommendations, but also expanded on them.

Unconscious of both of us, I became his student, and he became my teacher, with little more than a few minutes of conversation every couple of days. I had found someone who took my interest seriously, and encouraged it to grow. But what I learned from him was more than music. He sparked a small scholarly impetus deep inside me that lives with me today.

I believe in education, but not the kind that you find in a school building. It’s not the kind that can be tested or lead to some qualification or career. It’s the kind of education motivated merely by the desire to know more. I believe in the kind of education that has a teacher and a student, but no program.

I sought that education, and with the help of a man who’s name I never knew, I found it. I hope one day to be a teacher too, just like the one I had.

Take care of our daily, thank you.

I’ve been finding myself reflective and introspective about my future as a journalist lately. Maybe it’s the pending graduation, or maybe it’s the excitement stirred up in us by our professors who see us heading into what was for them a great adventure, but I’ve caught a strange bug.

When I graduated from the University of Washington, I wanted to leave silently and barely acknowledge that I ever went there. For a period of time I was convinced that my education there was a waste, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward into the future, and I sure as hell didn’t want to hear some bullshit speech about wearing sunscreen.

But now every time I see someone give some passionate diatribe about the importance of journalism and the ethical dilemmas we face every day, my heart flutters just a little bit and I puff up my chest and gear up like I’m about to run the race of my life.
I don’t mean to sound clichéd, or falsely nostalgic. I’m really not making this up. I wish my feelings weren’t this cheesy.

So today as I heard , Ann Marie Lipinski, vice president and editor of the Chicago News Tribune, speak, I wanted to stand up in my chair and say “YES!” as she spoke of how important our work was, and how we shape our values.

She remembered back on to her own time starting out in journalism at the school newspaper at the University of Michigan where she says she did more than pretend, or playact at being a journalist.

“There is in every successful career a time when that true love is nurtured,” Lipinski said.
Maybe it was because she reflected on her own experience as an undergraduate at the school newspaper, but I found myself during the lecture looking for that moment when the thing I love finally became nourished.

Lipinski marks two moments in her life. The most recent, the previously mentioned school newspaper, and as a child watching her grandmother iron and tell the unbiased stories of her life.

Lipinski grounds her stories in hope, denying the standard assumption that today’s journalists fail where yesterday’s journalists succeeded. She recounts newspaper after newspaper that succeeds at doing the good work that brought her into journalism in the first place.

The point she comes to is that, although she says she’s a “platform agnostic,” someone must pay for the service that journalists offer.

I’m an idealist, and when I look to the future of technology, I see all the opportunity to utilize it to the advantage of journalism. But Lipinski brings home the real point that if every gets information for free, as ideal as that situation is, who will pay the writers to sit in a tent on the other side of the world to bring home the stories that really matter.

As I left the talk, what I took was not the individual points, but a small sense of pride in what we do. As I leave this program, I’m leaving it excited at what I’ve learned and what I will do with my career.

Which brings home the moral of Lipinski’s many stories. As she reflected on life without newspapers, she paused to be thankful for what it is we do, when she remembers one letter sent to her school newspaper.

“Take care of our daily, thank you.”

Go to the University of Oregon Journalism School website to read Lipinski's prepared remarks.

Shaw: Journalists rule, regular people drool!

As bloggers start taking on weightier issues, and do real reporting instead of regurgitating the day's headlines with commentary, the question, “What is a journalist?” grows ever more important. David Shaw at the Los Angeles Times rants extensively on this issue, desperately claiming that bloggers are not in fact journalists, because they do not have the training, the experience, or the editors.

I would like to hear Shaw simply say out loud, "Journalists are better than regular people," because I believe that is what he is really saying here. Maybe I'm overstating this point, maybe this is a little stump speech, but I think Shaw insensitively dismisses other styles of journalism in a snobbish manner. Journalism has no bar system; we do not get knighted when we sign on with the Associated Press. We are merely individuals - flawed individuals - seeking out information and publishing it for the world to see.

I believe journalists - hell, just about anyone - should go with the assumption at any given moment that they only know, at their very best, 10 percent of the story. The second part of this assumption is that the collective of people involved in the story know the whole. This means, in fact, that no one individual knows the whole of a story.

Dan Gilmore, author of We The Media makes a similar point. He says that the readers, the sources, the people really involved in the story know far more than he does. They, not he, are the experts. Admitting this, and relinquishing control to those people is frightening, Gilmore concedes, but ultimately liberating.

Bloggers help fill in, though not completely, the hole that reporters cannot tackle on their own.

Shaw overlooks, sadly, that journalism was not built on experienced writers. Jack Shafer, Editor at large for Slate, makes this point clearly in his article Don't Fear the Blogger when he says:

No aspiring journalist has any journalistic experience before he reports and writes his first story. All he needs to gain entry to the profession is access to a keyboard, a desire to be published, and an editor willing to publish his work. Upon that day he becomes a journalist—maybe not a good journalist, but a journalist just the same.

In the scenario in which the willing publisher is an online platform, free to all people, this expands the opportunity for journalism exponentially.

Shaw reveals, zealously and selfishly, reveals that he believes that the constitutional rights of the press come with restrictions as to who can use them.

Philip Meyer, professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina, wrote his own take on this an article titled "What is a 'journalist'?" in USA Today.

There is neither sound moral nor legal justification for claiming that those who work for major news organizations have stronger First Amendment rights than the rest of us.

I believe that the reason we have so many laws and legalities surrounding journalism is because the action of researching, writing and reporting is so fundamentally important, not the individual reporter.

Shaw's initial concern is not unfounded. As bloggers start reporting and scooping traditional publications, the questions of law become all the more important. The easiest answer I see to Shaw's problem, however, is a compromise: the understanding that with rights come responsibilities.

Shaw, I think, assumes that somehow bloggers will get the freedom of the press without the associated risk. In fact, I believe that bloggers are at more risk, without the backing of a publisher to go to court for them.

Shaw says that he must send his articles to four editors before publication. But when he offends someone or makes a mistake to the point of a lawsuit, he has a team of people to defend him. He has four editors who approved his writing, and thus four people with whom he can share the blame.

Bloggers in contrast have no editors, and complete freedom to write whatever they please. But when the millions of readers see the unfiltered information and take offense, or even legal action, the individual blogger stands alone in his or her defense.

I think Shaw’s rant is defensive, fearing what blogging might to journalism. He fears that it will produce fact errors, biases and controversy. Does Shaw not realize that these things are why so many people despise traditional journalists?

Over time I’m not concerned with blogs. The vast Internet is a self fact-checking machine. Like Wikipedia, the users are the editors, and there are billions of them. What bloggers will soon come to realize is that they do have the freedom to report information, but with that will come the responsibility to defend that freedom.

Dan Gilmore's book We The Media is worth a look, and available in its entirety for free online. Go to O'Reilly.com's We The Media site to read the pdf files.

Berkley Breathed

When I was little I picked up a large collection of comics featuring the now iconic cartoon penguin, Opus. I never got too many of the jokes, but still I read page after page of Bloom County Babylon until I had the large book virtually memorized.

So imagine my surprise and delight when he made his triumphant return into the funnies pages. I was a little skeptical at first, because it appeared as though Breathed had become a little full of himself. Initially he required a half page of space in the comics, and refused to have his comic shown online. I overlooked this issue, and got my Sunday subscription of The Seattle Times primarily for Opus. I'll admit it, I got my news online primarily, and I had a steady income at the time, so I really have no excuse.

The reason I subscribed was in part inspired by Breathed's clear and present love of print media. I found it a little snobby, but I felt in a way his reasoning to make his demands were okay. He wanted to see larger comics, and to be reading the actual newspaper more often than the online news portals. He also added in interviews that he'd been spending his near ten years off of the page studying art, and he didn't want to see his hard work shrunk down in size.

But as time has passed I've become increasingly disappointed in Breathed's work. I would not be so critical, if it weren't for the fact that he came roaring back into the scene guns a-blazing ready to make some changes in print media. Over the span of his new comic's life, the vast artwork that he claimed deserved a half page of layout became, well, not so vast, and more than a little bit lazy. I'll admit that the first months of the series we had seen a definite improvement. The page space did allow him to draw some epic pictures. But as time has gone on he has slouched into a steady routine of printing standard boxed in comics.

What's worse... he's not funny anymore. I've been coming to this realization over time, but the cartoon he printed for last Sunday was evidence that he was not funny, and worse, he was a little dated.

Watching the older generation chuckle over the ways of the younger, to me, is obnoxious, and one comic page habit I had hoped Breathed would avoid. But instead, like every other cartoon on the funny pages, Breathed takes immature jabs at younger audiences, overlooking a few facts.

Firstly, could it be, perhaps, that the younger audience isn't interested in a medium that doesn't speak to them? Could it be that comics that poke fun at younger consumers only exacerbates the reasons that people younger than 30 don't read the newspaper? Now when I look at Breathed's work, it feels like the Zits cartoons my mother sticks up on her fridge. Content sells, and frankly if Breathed was still funny, entertaining and astute, he might find a still-interested younger audience.

The second is, as Breathed mocks the iPod toting, laptop using youth, he fails to recognize that even he caved on his own standards. The comic, once forbidden for online reproduction, is now posted weekly on Comics.com. Watching Breathed here, I feel like he's being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the present. He can day dream over the yesteryear of newspapers, but I find that ignoring the fact that paper newspapers aren't selling to the next generation isn't the fault of the iPod plugged youth, but the newspapers.

So maybe I'm just a petulant youth that likes clinging to my white plexiglassed Apple products, or maybe my white plexiglassed Apple products have offered a better way to get the news than gray paper that leaves black ink on my hand. I'd love to see a newspaper under the arm of every person, young and old. Knowing that we're all part of the conversation would give me more hope for the world than I currently have, but in the meantime I'm more interested in people getting the news, in whatever medium they prefer, than clinging to the older methods of distribution.

So to Mr. Breathed: It's not the iPod generation's fault your newspapers aren't selling. If younger audiences aren't interested in your product, it's not because they need convincing that it's important, it's because you lacked the creativity to create a product they want.

Blog blog blah...

So, in case you weren’t aware, this blog exists because I’m taking a class that requires it. I’m not complaining myself. I will probably continue to post after my schooling ends (in less than a month!!!!!). What you’ve read before (or will read, I hope, if you’re just tuning in) is about 50 percent required by a class, and 50 percent posts based on my own impetus to write. On the required half, I’ve found most of the discussion of some value. I find that many writers do better when they are working within limitations. It requires a little more creativity.

But sometimes it’s just frustrating, like this post here. I’m supposed to write about blogs run by traditional media that I like and don’t like. The problem is the “like” portion. I stare at the screen thinking, “I have to write about news blogs that I like?” because like most sane people, I turn to more non-traditional means when it comes to blogging. That’s the whole point isn’t it?

I find as I troll through most newspapers that even the few that I feel are doing decent work with blogs fall slightly short of what I think is possible. The Spokesman-Review, a newspaper that I respect quite a bit, does has some of the best blogs I’ve seen, but even as I run through their website I grow increasingly frustrated by reading the news on the web.

Newspaper sites run anywhere from four to six columns wide, making the entire experience a dizzying rollercoaster ride on the eyes. I spend half of my time distinguishing the real content from the ads. Then I have to figure out what content I am looking for.

I’ll give S-R’s blogs some credit though. Their Transparent Newsroom blog is a brilliant idea. It’s open to staff members and a few selected readers. They can post on the paper’s blog there, or on their own blogs, hosted on Google’s Blogger platform. This gives them the freedom to not stick to the paper’s convention. I’ve rarely seen a news staff so willingly cast themselves off to the critical public. I imagine editor Steve Smith stepping out in front of a group of picketers, throwing his arms out and saying “Ok, have at it!”

Unfortunately my biggest criticism of these blogs is also present here. Where do you find them? Sure, blog central is visible on the front page, but it’s more than halfway down the page, which if you’ve ever visited a newspaper website, you know how much you have to scroll through to find it. Their sports blog is a little more accessible, visible at the top under the sports column. Get into some of these blogs and quickly notice how each page looks vastly different. It would be nice to get the feeling as I move around a newspapers webpage that I am still in fact in the webpage. Finally after some searching I did find their blog directory.

Spokesman-Review, which I think is news blogging at its best, still falls short on the general navigation and search, but luckily does not fail as abysmally as its Washington compatriot, The Seattle Times, over on the other side of the mountains.

I don’t even want to link you to the blogs found there yet. Just hop over to the front page of the Seattle Times, and try to find their blogs.

Of the few they have, they’re buried deep within the site, and not readily available for readers. I feel like newspapers should really put their best foot forward with the online medium, and make the exclusive material easy to find, otherwise it continues to just be a poorly designed regurgitation of the material that fell on my doorstep this morning.

As I find the content, the blogs are limited to tech news and business. The blogs really lack their best use, which is a conversation about news and the community. It seems to me like the Times is more interested in using blogs to promote technology and business than they are to conversation and criticism. It, sadly, makes the blogs seem less trustworthy.

Maybe you'll run through these sites and have no problem. And in fact on the Times business page they put the blog in decent prominence, but what makes me frustrated is, even in the best situations, the lack of consistency. In a medium that has mastered how to present information on the page so well, can't we find a way to keep the online content from looking like Miriam-Webster’s vomited into an Ethernet cable?

More meth. . .

I’m going to step up on my soapbox for a minute and rant here a little bit.

I think that the research on meth conducted by Steve Suo and the Oregonian is commendable. To suggest that the government has the ability to make a difference on the methamphetamine market is a hopeful look. I’m impressed that the series does not just condemn the government for failing to deal with the issue, but in fact claims that the government did not realize it had a positive effect.

But my personal thoughts have been rattling around, and there’s a question that remains in my head that I can’t shake. The pharmaceutical companies that produce pseudoephedrine have stated that they are victims in this situation, and that what they are doing is legal.

They’re right, of course. But personally, I have an issue with this. How detached from society are the people making these decisions? I have to wonder, what are the pharmaceutical big-wigs thinking about when they defend the use of a chemical that they know is destroying lives at an alarming rate?

To me, there is a lack of values at play here. Just because it isn’t illegal, that doesn’t mean it’s still right. I have to think that my involvement in the production of such a chemical would leave me feeling a little uncomfortable.

Luckily, there is some good news here. Many over the counter companies are switching to a new decongestant called phenylephrine. It has many of the same affects, but, unlike pseudoephedrine-based decongestants, it can’t be used to make meth. Read more about Sudafed's decision to start using this drug in this Wikipedia article.

It seems to me that if the drug companies make a shift to this chemical, we will find that the meth market slows significantly.

I suspect part of what cuts the cost of meth is that the market for cold medicine is so vast that pharmaceutical companies produce pseudoephedrine at such huge quantities that super labs can buy them at a relatively low cost. If they have to produce it themselves, they will be making it in lower quantities (at least I hope the country uses more cold medicine than meth) increasing their cost.

If meth prices rise, I think we’re going to see a drop off in its current consumer base. Meth users don’t have tons of cash, hence the property crime. And if the price rises fast enough, they’re going to have to market it to a wealthier market to stay afloat.

I’m disappointed in the drug companies though. It took government restrictions for them to seek an alternative. Rather than consider the harm their product causes, they stopped once it became more inconvenient to maintain the status quo.

Maybe I’m an idealist, but I’d rather have businesses that have values that consider the impact of their actions. I suspect that I would be naïve to think there’s many companies out there that think of the harm they could cause before they think of the bottom line.

To learn more about the chemical pseudoephedrine, check out this Wikipedia article.

Why Wiki?

I remember when I was younger when I wanted to find out information, I flipped through the pages of an encyclopedia. Research began with my fingers gliding across the row of dark green books with gold embossing that sat on my family’s bookshelves. If I was writing a paper on Zimbabwe, I looked in the “XY & Z” volume of our encyclopedia set, using the information as a springboard for the rest of my research. As I got older, and my school assignments demanded a little more, I realized the limitation of the dictionaries.

My family's set has been sitting on the same bookshelf for years, and the fact is what it says about Iraq back then will hardly give me the important information I need now. Dictionaries are expensive, and are quickly redundant. The fact is I will likely never purchase my own set.

The reason is because with the Internet we have access to so much more information. A wiki site alone provides more than a dictionary ever could, but some people argue that such sources are not reliable, and inherently flawed.

A wiki is a method of organizing information. Its primary purpose is to compile information, and allow the users to change it as they see fit. Wikipedia is my personal favorite example of this.

On Wikipedia I can look up an extensive amount of information in much the same way as a dictionary. The extent of information varies, but I find that on the whole it provides the same kind of service as a traditional dictionary -- basic information from which to springboard into deeper research.

Critics of the method state that without proper monitoring, and overseeing board or editor to state whether the information is accurate, there is too much opportunity for biased or false information.

I recognize the potential for misuse, ignorance or flat out vandalism. The fact is if I wanted to speak poorly of a politician, or misrepresent a topic, it would be easy to hop on and do so. The following comic from video game gurus and cultural commentators (however irreverent) Penny Arcade illustrates this point amusingly with the this comic.

I disagree with the criticism that such websites have received. I believe that the potential for incorrect, biased or even intentionally hurtful information is possible, but no more so than traditional journalism or research. Although the editorial control is diminished (but not, as some would state, completely non-existent) it presents a new possibility: the editorial control of collective thought.

Because millions of people are using Wikipedia every day, the potential for abuse is quickly overridden. Instead of an editorial board stopping bad information from going through, millions of people with millions of perspectives watchdog the sites, and are able to change things back and forth.

I've mentioned before the possibility for immature conversation and argument online, but luckily this is where the wiki creators got it right. The system is set up for just such on occasion. Have a look at the Wikipedia post on George W. Bush.

Obviously such a controversial figure presents a lot of divergent opinions, and easily opponents to Bush's policies would be likely to vandalize the site. But the Wikipedia staffers keep watch over these things, and place limitations over the most highly disputed articles. In the case of the George W. Bush article, only registered users with good standing may edit the page now, due to misuse. Scroll further down the article and you will find red stop signs wherever users have felt the information is not neutral. Click on the sign to join the discussion, which will eventually lead to a final, hopefully more neutral piece.

These are just a few of the verification and discussion tools that Wikipedia offers, making a dictionary that is more than a list of facts. The dictionary is in fact a conversation, a representation of our collective knowledge. Although the potential for misinformation is there, I feel that the massive user base provides a fact checking system that will create a natural homeostasis, keeping the information relatively accurate.

I would not want to read a research paper based off of a Wikipedia article without more research, but like the dictionaries of my youth, it can serve as a springboard for more information.

Point for investigative journalism

I'm in complete support of citizen journalism. If the media is to be a conversation, then we have to give a voice to those that aren't doing this for a living. It's an important aspect which deals with the question, if the news is watching the government and businesses, who's watching the news? Citizen journalists help this process. And in the last several years, especially during hurricane Katrina, we saw just how powerful that is.

One of the perhaps too often discussed questions here at the University of Oregon is whether or not citizen journalists will replace professional journalists. As a group of professionals hoping to make it in the job market this is a bit of a pressing concern, but one that I am not personally concerned about. And a talk yesterday at the University solidified why I feel that way.

Hop over to The Oregonian's special report page on the meth epidemic to see why. Page after page after page examining with a great deal of scrutiny the methamphetamine problems that are sweeping across the nation. Now, sure, it doesn’t take a paid journalist to write an article about meth. Talk to a couple recovered addicts, meet with a politician and talk to a state patrol officer and you're pretty well there, right?

But what the Oregonian has shown us what can be done with a full time investigator, just tracking this one issue. Where the government has been unable to provide an answer as to why we have the situation at hand, Steve Suo has given detailed information, the most important of which he found over months of statistical analysis.

It wasn't all done in front of a computer. In fact what made the story work had more to do with legwork than punching a few numbers in excel. Before Suo had a glimpse of what the real issue was, he spent three months traveling around to different states collecting data from police agencies and rehab clinics. Suo was able to do what, with all due respect to citizen journalists, your average person can't do without some sort of financial backing.

This is all to merely illustrate one point. Technology can advance, it can become nearly effortless for an individual to start a website, a radio program or any imaginable medium, but it can't change the fact that there is a limited amount of time, money and resources. We have to eat, and work. Citizen journalists work with a fire in their belly above and beyond most people, but occasionally we need someone to dedicate the hours and resources to something long term.

For most newspapers deep investigative reports like this don't lead to any major cash. Good newspapers regularly funnel money into projects that don't bring about any real revenue from readership, but are motivated by the same fire in their belly as the citizen journalist.

Suo is not a brief example of this dedication to information gathering. The story has gone from months to years, and the affects of his work imprint themselves across local and international governing agencies. The articles have influenced drug policies from state, to national and international agencies.

Suo admitted at his talk that he is looking forward to having his life dedicated to another topic, but I'm thankful in the meantime that they have poured this much effort into the issue. It's why we do what we do.

Tic tic tic tic tic tic tic... WHOOPS!

There is one aspect about writing for the Internet that doesn't really bother me, but does keep me a little more aware.

It's all so fast. Right now I don't have to type on a word processor, but a little box on a web page. Most people I'd wager don't sit back, look at their blog entries and go, "Well, I'll sleep on it then punch it in." Instead after a short period of keyboard clicks they compulsively grab the mouse and click the "Send" button.

It's the same problem with e-mail. Before you look over what you've written, it's already half way across the world in the inbox of the recipient. It brings the quality of writing down a little bit, but there is an advantage to this type of scenario. People have reached a subconscious understanding, or will, I hope, that this is much more like a conversation than we realized.

Because of the speed of the Internet, people move so quick to get their post or their comment up that they don't sit back and say, "Do I really mean that? Is that really what I want to say?" but instead just throw it out there and let the chips fall where they may.

Unfortunately this has some downsides. The Internet is also a place where you can be relatively anonymous, and, even when you're not, you don't have to speak face to face. Stroll through a few Internet forums and you'll find a range of people saying some rather insensitive things, all the way down to people throwing hastily written and misspelled expletives back and forth like snowballs.

There is so much space and so much opportunity to print that people toss out ideas, comments and opinions out like candy. The plus: we act more like a conversation, more like journalism should be - a participatory flow of communication in which the reader is involved. The downside: People often don't realize, even though their words are just a drop in the vast bucket that is the Internet, that their words are printed like graffiti on a wall that does not quickly go away.

You think because it's electronic it just gets deleted, but it's amazing what you'll find online if you search deeply enough. Bloggers and forum users won’t change how they currently act, I imagine. But if Steve Outing's prediction in his article What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists, that people may be held accountable in the justice system for their actions, I suspect we'll see a little more cautious conversation in the future.

Let's talk abouts sex...

As a society we are stunted in terms of our ability to talk about sex (baby), or so said Benoit Denizet-Lewis at a recent talk at the University of Oregon on writing about sex.

Denizet-Lewis argued that journalists don’t succeed at doing much more than presenting horror stories of pedophiles and predators, and never really examine what the sexuality in a real meaningful way. Journalists, much like most people, don’t want to talk about sex (baby). There will be consequences, Denizet-Lewis says.

The consequence that caught my attention was his warning about a society in which young men are learning about sex on the Internet, which he fears may shape their perception of what sexuality looks like.

When I step back and think about my adolescence and remember “the talk,” it all adds up for me. My dad sat down to explain birds, bees etc. and I left very confused. The next day I talked with my older brother only to find out that not only did animals have sex, people did too! Gross!

The conversations never got much better. My father didn’t want to have them, and neither did I. The last one I can remember went something like this:

“Aaron, you know how condoms work don’t you?”

“Yup.”

Both of us wiped our nervous brows and moved on to a different topic as quickly as we could.

I spent my high school years very unclear about how sex worked. I left my freshman health class, where my skinny ass was cruelly sat next to the freshman head cheerleader, convinced that I would contract some crippling STD from masturbation alone

My own confusion resonates with Denizet-Lewis’ fear of a young mans sexual knowledge. I wanted easy answers, and for a while it lead me to understand sexuality in a way that did not reflect reality.

“They had such a really fucked up sense of women and what women’s sexuality was,” Denizet-Lewis said about the young men he spoke with during his research.

To me, this scenario is all about social economy. People basically act in a way that maximizes their benefit and minimizes their cost. I believe this is heavily in play when young men start having questions about sexuality and hormones kick in.

Take a young man, who has newfound sexual urges, and lots of questions. His options are to talk to his parents, which isn’t going to happen, talk to his friends, who in the mind of a teenager are all Supermen in bed, talk to his girlfriend, and we all know he’s not going to go there, or hop onto the Internet.

The Internet is filled with naked bodies, sex and answers to more questions than he had. He didn’t even know you could put THAT body part in THERE! And look, there’s lesbians! The Internet is treasure trove of answers and sexual gratification. It’s an easy answer to a difficult question, and given his options what other choice would he make?

It’s the choice that I made, rather than seek answers from people, which would cost me humiliation and unwanted exposure. When I was a teenager Pornography provided more than sexual gratification, it provided getting answers. Just how did sex work?

But as is expected, the fantasy-driven, male-dominated picture of sex painted on the Internet canvass hardly reflects reality.

I would like to think that I have come out of my teenage years relatively unscathed -- not without a few wake-up calls about how sex worked outside of the world of pornography. But for just a minute let’s imagine a world in which millions of young men are growing, and developing sexually with Internet pornography as a teacher.

Maybe my reaction is knee-jerk motivated, and my teenage years didn’t turn me into a sexual predator, so is this just a case of “boys will be boys?” Is the Internet the new generations answer to finding Dad’s magazines under the mattress? Denizet-Lewis does not seem to think so, and I worry about a scenario in which one young man’s perceptions of sexuality persuade his partner into something she doesn’t want to do.

Read about Denizet-Lewis at his website, or check out his article about teen sexuality, "What Ever Happened To Teen Romance?"

Yet another article about how blogging affects traditional media...

The professional news media peaked a number of years ago in terms of speed, but as much as we’d like to speed up the process fastor, a news reporter can only do so much. At it’s best a newspaper can report online as quickly as possible, following up with a more in depth article and perhaps some commentary the next day.

Now there is a new, much faster alternative, one in which the reporter is the middleman that needs to be removed. Blogs allow instantaneous public voice to world, and fill in those cracks where traditional media fails.

Yesterday, after a long and controversial deliberation, a closely-watched jury sentenced Zacarias Moussaoui to life. As usual, the Associated Press had the story out as quickly as anybody, but the reactions to this event were limited to those at the trial. At it’s best we may have a quote from a lawyer or a distraught family member, but as this important event took place I wondered how the world would react to the decision.

The use of blogs, giving instant publication access to anyone with access to an Internet connection, provided that voice, that instant reaction that traditional press cannot supply. It provided a gut, knee-jerk opinion, and even though the opinions are not the product of much discussion and thought, I believe there’s something to learn from initial reactions.

As I scrolled through post after post discussing the sentencing, I found many of the expected reactions – those who thought he should be sentenced to death and those who do not believe in the death penalty, and everyone in between – but I also found very different opinions that would not normally receive media coverage. One blog sided directly with Zacarias Moussaoui and denounced America in every way.

What this new medium offers is more than just personal commentary, but commentary so diverse and uncensored that it far surpasses the information granted by the traditional news media.

Media continues to discuss and debate the effect of blogs on communications and news, but it’s clear that most are taking the stand of “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

They are popping up everywhere, and as Steve Outing from the Poynter Institute states, it blurs the original expectations of both.

Outing presented two articles, What Journalists Can Learn From Bloggers” and “What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists” pointing out that despite the advantages of both, a little tech-cultural exchange would do both groups some good.

The news media, he argues, could take a tip and be a little more transparent about its own biases. Blogs offer the media new opportunities to tell the story behind the story, talk about methods, and even expose opinions that otherwise do not belong in the article.

On the flip side, bloggers could use a few checks and balances. Bloggers will argue that the Internet is a constantly changing, self-correcting medium, but already legal groups have issues subpoenas to individuals based on publications found on blogs. Outing wonders if libel lawsuits wait just around the corner?

Although Outing does not want to stop bloggers from their freedom to write, he does suggest that they consider a second set of eyes before publication, and some thoughtful consideration about the possible consequences of the article.

Outing is optimistic that the rumors that blogs would eventually destroy traditional media will not come true, especially if each medium supports the other. As writer Patrick Beeson states in his article “Blogging: What is it?” in Quill Magazine, after the blogger turns off his or her computer, there’s still bills to pay and dishes to do. While the professional journalist can use the help, insight and opinion of a blogger, the blogger can rely on the reporter that has 40 hours a week to dedicate to hard news investigation.

Blogging cannot replace the traditional legwork of journalism, but the media must be aware that blogging could be what saves them from fossilizing into obsolescence.

First Post: Reflections on being a Blogger

As a writer, I like having a decent buffer. It’s comforting to know that, legally speaking, my writing belongs to the newspaper, and when I write something that someone else doesn’t like, I have the newspaper as an advocate to keep me safe.

I don’t get angry calls from readers, or worse, the subject of an article. The newspaper does. In the event that I do, I can always send them to the editor. So long as I’m doing my job right, the newspaper has my back.

But that’s starting to change, and although I like my newspaper security blanket as much as the next journalist, it’s time for us to grow up a little bit, and face our readers and our subjects.

What if the readers were able to take your article, and tack on their own comments at the end? Or send readers to another source? What if those comments weren’t edited, and the reader could throw compliments or, just as likely, insults and complaints your way.

That’s just what blogs do, and though I’ve been relatively lucky, I’ve had my share of complaints as well.
As a DJ, I post my playlists online at Discord/Harmony. For a while I would highlight my favorite tracks, and even each week I’d highlight at least one “dud” that didn’t work with the set, or just plain wasn’t good.

Then the comment came after I spoke poorly of one group that just didn’t work for me. It said, quite frankly, “You’re a dud!”

Now, the individual posted anonymously. It could be anyone – a random person moving around blogs leaving obnoxious comments just to start arguments (known across the netiverse as “trolls”), it could be one of my siblings giving me a decent ribbing, or it could be a sincere fan of the group arguing back.

It doesn’t really matter which, the fact is by opening myself into an environment where people can shout back if they want, I’m opening myself to criticism. And hopefully, it will make me a better writer and a better thinker.

Now, I’m not a fan of blind insults either way, so I tried to discourage the anonymous reader to come out from hiding, especially since my full name appeared on the front of the blog. I asked him to talk with me, and maybe convince me that a group called Catfish Haven was worth more than what I had indicated, and I got lucky, because he did.

I’ve seen all too many times the barrage of insults thrown back and forth in online forums over topics as weighty as religion, or as futile as which band is the best. Sadly the language and nature of the arguments often is at the same low level of maturity.

The best ones though, and I’ve received just a few, come out, say who they are and make a clear argument, from which I will learn something. It’s the type of thing as professional writers we would love to avoid, but the reader may be the best editor we have – one that will bring a new perspective to our subject and open up our mind.