Hey Mel, those are widgets that came with the theme… I added them to the “north_sidebar.” I did hack this theme a tad, but mainly changed the graphics and adjusted the width.

Hmmm… Wayne, I agree with some things, but not all.

Social Media is an incredible tool that allows for the community, including reporters, to interact with the community in a new and engaging way. It’s quite powerful and an essential tool in journalism. Yes, there are creeps out there that are trying to make money in shady ways, but that’s not tied to the technology… that’s capitalism.

I don’t think that Social Media is the downfall of our language. (I do agree that it exposed our weak spelling skills.)

Language evolves, just like our communication methods. Carved stones, inkwell pens, handwritten letters, etc… these all evolved. Just like their distribution evolved: Telegraph, snail mail, telephone, email, Twitter, etc.

Sure there are some very bad writers limited to 140 characters, but there are also some bad writers who can’t limit themselves to 14 inches of copy.

I do wholeheartedly agree we are at a crossroads of what is acceptable “quality” in storytelling – text, photos, audio, video, etc. But it’s not the business’ level of quality that I wonder about… it’s the readers’.

That said, if our readers don’t care about spelling and prefer information in smaller chunks, who are we to look down upon them? We need to report and distribute information to help people to be informed citizens. Size and distribution doesn’t matter as long as they get accurate, relevant information.

I still believe that the quality of content is key. That doesn’t change, regardless of pixels or paper or airwaves.

But being in a corner holding tight to our typewriters and the idea of the “good ol’ days,” in my opinion, is what got us into this mess. We didn’t adapt with our readers. We got lazy, spoiled and out of touch.

Blaming change misses the point. Change is essential, as long as we don’t change our values.

And lastly, copy editors are ESSENTIAL. For some reason newsrooms are laying them off because they think that craft is over. Oh what a rude awakening they will get when a typo leads to a major lawsuit.

I learned the value of the copydesk early in my career and how they make me sound smarter in my pieces. I’ll be the first one to admit I need an editor for my posts, emails, tweets and comments. I write like I talk… which isn’t grammatically proper. But I would also argue that my message is still relevant.

Thanks for your comment and your point of view. It’s a great discussion we need to have and not shy away from.

But Joe, don’t kid yourself. Doing the same type of journalism storytelling from 20, 10… hell, even 5 years ago isn’t going to cut it.

You need to use social media to connect with and talk to the community you are covering BEFORE you report, DURING your report and AFTER you report. You need to distribute your content everywhere, especially outside of your media company.

What I am saying is that the core journalism values are still more important than the technology. (For the record, our industry doesn’t necessarily have a great track record of applying those values.) Don’t dismiss technology. That would be a fatal mistake… know how it applies to journalism and how it supports our values.