Internet's Impact on Newspapers

Looking at the history of media there is evidence of medium being challenged by a newer, more flashy and convenient medium. When radio was invented, it challenged the newspaper, when TV was invented, it challenged the radio, and when the Internet was invented, it challenged all that had come from befor it. When television was created, the end of radio dramas was a result, is evidence of this situation.

So when a technology such as the Internet is so readily available for established medium it is a concern.

When dealing with newspapers you must look at the immediate concerns. The newspaper costs money for readers, it is printed up as sometimes over 50 pages a day, it only comes out once a day, and it costs more to keep it local by establishing regional editions. The truth is that more and more people are looking to online news sources for stories and the subscrption and circulation of print media is declining. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564853_9/Newspaper.html

While there is some threat from the Internet, the blame does not all go there for the print media's decline, and TV among simple social factors also come into radar. Take for example the fact many papers are forming chains. In this the points of views are diminished leaving readers with the same story and same point of view, causing them to deflect from returning to read that again. Television did this by allowing news to come more often and with visuals to back it up. It also allowed to see one end of the earth from another.
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761553932/Journalism.html#s6

The advantages of news on the Internet are clear, as reported in this Encarta article:

readers can find continually updated information on a variety of subjects,
without waiting several hours for a new edition or the next news broadcast.
Another advantage is the ability of news organizations to publish more
in-depth
information on the Internet, such as background documents, detailed
maps, or
previous stories

However, at the same time a disadvantage is: "the Internet is that, because information can be published almost instantly, companies occasionally release stories without subjecting them to the same quality controls and fact-checking processes common in other media."

Using the Internet for news is inevitable, so newspapers have taken that road in order to ensure new readership as well as keep themselves financially well.

Some do not think that way, and instead see it as giving away something for free and having their subscribers cancel on them. http://www.orenews.com/news/profitability.html
Others believe that subscribers would follow them onto the web, but studies have shown most Americans don't want anything on the Internet to cost them money. http://www.medialifemagazine.com/news2002/may02/may27/2_tues/news4tuesday.html
This leaves newspapers to go to advertising to make money. Unfortunately for them, the use of ads is hard to work even in the Internet, because, first of all, no reader wants to see ads to begin with. Secondly, the placement and content of an ad is key in print and is key online as well. Having an ad in the way of a story often causes the reader to withdraw interest in an article or site. So putting in ads that can easily be ignored and seen at the same time is the only strategy, but it is also a paradox. In the end, most news sites settle for ads at the top, bottom, or sides of the page.

So the newspapers are forced to use the web for stories, but do they use it well enough? A Biving report went to see just what the Top 100 papers were doing. It was found that most of them did not supply enough interactivity with the readers which is something internet news is in need of and can best serve. http://www.bivingsreport.com/campaign/newspapers06_tz-fgb.pdf

Looking at the advantages briefly, and the cons as well, but also what has been used so far by companies I can see a shift from news in print to news online. Still, there is a need for newspapers out there, and there is no end for them in site. Most of the news in America is delivered to people through this outlet. It seems that it is more a battle of age gaps and need for more localization and competition in the industry. Young people, busy people, and the tech savvy people will go to the Web, everyone else goes to the print, people want more about where they live, and they want their papers without it being the same as everyone else's paper.

Kusports.com

The site is about Kansas Univeristy sports teams and gives updated info on the games along with media and other devices like blogs or columns. The site is sponsored by Lawrence Journal-World, the paper for Lawrence, Kansas. The site is not an official KU site. The target audience of the site is most likely for those interested in college sports, Kansas University sports, alumni, current students, and parents and friends of those who play or are involved in some way. The coolest features of the site is the list of past Jayhawks ('Hawks) who are now in professional sports. Aside from that the coolest feature is the SMS text messages about the games.

It's Cold!

How do I know? I just spent the weekend camping, plus, right now it is snowing, or hailing based on the sound of it against my window. Cold is hard. I wish it were summer so I could be hot enough to wish it were winter.

Civil War Has Ended!

What has seemed like the longest journey that was meant to go for seven months, but lasted three months shy of a year is finally finished. Last year, in May, Marvel Comics began their latest biggest event to shake everything up, and you know what, they did. Personally, if Marvel had what I believed to be their goal then I know they succeeded. First of all, they sold about...a lot of comics, especially thanks to tie-in comics in the monthly that go along with the big book.

This event was "Civil War" a comic written by Mark Millar, and drawn by Steve McNiven. The story follows the sudden death and explosion that kills 600 people in Stanford, MA during a battle between attention-starved heroes and several super-villans. Most of the deaths were children. Following the event the trust people have in heroes is diminshed and a law goes into effect calling for heroes to join basically what can be seen as the army under the government. This does not sit well with Captain America who sees that it hurts everything a hero stands for, as well as it leaves it for heroes to follow and fight only those who the American government sees as enemies. Iron Man takes up the other side of the law, and vigilante unregistered heroes are outlawed. Deaths result, as well as family and friends fighting one another. At the end of the day, there is only one winner, and the other side is totally ripped apart and no one believes in or cares for them any longer. Truthfully, they all believe in the side that wins, or at least that is what is shown to us.

The outcome I will not say, because of spoilers, but it's one I have not fully grasped yet, and I question if it was changed during production.

Charity Fashion Show to Support School for Children

The third annual Charity Fashion Show, Unzip, will be held this weekend at Monmouth University in an effort to raise money for the School of Children, a non-profit specialized school for students with multiple disabilities and autism.

Unzip will begin at 7 p.m. with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. and will be held in the Woodrow Wilson Grand Hall on Saturday, February 24. Expect to see MU students model clothing made by local designers, who will sell their clothing at the show.

In the past, there were only female models, but this year things will be a bit different, WMCX Office Coordinator Donna Mancini explains. "This is the first year with men models, so we're prepared with a co-ed changing room. One side for the women, another for the men."

The show is sponsored by clubs and organizations here at MU, such as WMCX, Hawk TV, CommWorks, The Outlook, and the Publice Relations Student Society of America. The show is financially-backed by the Student Government Association and Student Services.

School for Children is a not-for-profit school that teaches children with multiple disabilities and autism. The group was once a part of MU before it moved off-campus to a new facility in Eatontown, NJ. "My neighbor's daughter goes there, and two MU alumni and former WMCX members, Amy Sroka and Daniel Layton teach there, so we are doing are best to support a part of MU that has moved off-campus," said Mancini.

As the day approaches, MU and the surrounding community get ready for the show this weekend. Jared Ballin, MU student, waits in anticipation for the event: "I think we're going to have a great time at the show, see some new clothing, and it's all for a good cause. It's for the children."

Tickets for the show in advance are $10 and $15 at the door. Contact Donna Mancini at 732-571-3482 to purchase tickets or make a donation.

Being a Man

So there was a winter junk-storm on Wednesday, and ice showed up. So basically everyday afterwards on Thursday and Friday I made fake slips by crouching behind objects, or just going "Whoa--!" and making believe I slipped. I kept doing this in front of my friend for as many times as possible, and I joked that there would come a time I really would slip for real and they wouldn't notice. Well, I did, and they reacted that way. So now I am recovering from hitting my head with a sore neck and overall feeling stupid for slipping. It wasn't a very manly thing to do, but no, I guess by not saying anything about hurting myself until eventually I had to, it makes me manly. Whatever the case. I guess guys are stupid is what I am saying. We don't say when we get lost, and we don't admit to getting hurt, and if we do, we just laugh it off so we can go sit and brood in a corner as we rub our heads and mutter "Idiot" to ourselves.

MU outside of monmouth.edu?

A site about Monmouth University that is not Monmouth.edu, not from our class, on myspace, or on facebook that is about or by a Monmouth Student?

The Answer: http://wmcx.com/

WMCX.com is the site for the radio station associated with MU and plays online and on the radio at 88.9 FM. The slogan of the station right now is "Modern Rock with an Edge". The site itself is designed and maintained by Jason Allentoff, a student at MU and Co-News Director for the station until this semester where Peter Torlucci has taken over for him as Co-News Director.

http://wmcx.com/contact.php

Here you can see where you can contact him. Regardless, we have the product WMCX.com, a site for Monmouth University's radio station, for MU students, made by an MU student.

NJ.gov

1. http://www.twp.evesham.nj.us/local_links.htm

Evesham Township links to New Jersey's official web site here because it is a town within this state and posting a link here will help those looking at this town to understand the most about the community and the state in which it is in. Also, it will help those Evesham townspeople who probably frequent the page get to the state's page without having to remember the address, despite the address being as simple as nj.gov.

2. http://njgin.state.nj.us/OIT_TravelGuide/events.jsp

This site is for New Jersey Tourism, so it is only logical that at the top of the page where government is listed there is a link to nj.gov. This would allow tourists to know what sort of laws we have before coming and also provides more options for what to see here in the Garden State.

3. http://www.njmrc.nj.gov/hcpr/html/links.html

The New Jersey Medical Reserves Corps is an organization that serves New Jersey and it's citizens, so having a link to those that they serve makes sense. Not only that, the NJMRC is a product of the New Jersey Government, or at least one of it's branches, and thus being so, it makes sense to link to the people who are behind it.

4. http://www.njcivilrights.org/links.html

This site links to nj.gov way at the bottom, but also links to many pages within the nj.gov site well before the site itself. The reason these links are in place because it too, like the link above, serve the New Jersey community and as a group taking place in New Jersey working with the government is a sure thing to get things done.

5. http://www.njfoodcouncil.com/govlinks.html

This is the mission of the New Jersey Food Council in their own words:

The New Jersey Food Council is an allianceof food retailers and their supplier partners united to provide vision and leadership to advance the interests of its members.In support of this mission, we are committed to:Continuing and maintaining the Food Council’sreputation for excellence and integrity;Serving as an advocate on both legislative andregulatory issues on behalf of our retail membersand the mutual interests of their supplier partners;Disseminating accurate and timely information inorder to educate and inform government, ourmembers and the public;Developing strategic alliances to further our missionand achieve our short and long term goals;and Enhancing the image of the food industry.

http://www.njfoodcouncil.com/about.html

Because this is their mission, it would make sense they would have a link to the government. In fact, one reason is right there in the mission statement: "Serving as an advocate on both legislative and regulatory issues..." when you are dealing with legislation, you are dealing with the government, so the two interests exist to bring them together, and a hyperlink is doing that just swell.

When I Grow Up (To Be A Man)

Aside from the Beach Boys song reference in the title of this blog I have no idea what else to write. The funny thing is, the only thing I want to do when I grow up is write, see only the people I want to see instead of annoying people you tend to find at jobs and clients, and relax in my free time. What my job is, I'm not sure. Basically I just want to get to the point where I can write what I want to write: novels, a story, a series of stories, a movie, TV show, something like those. But to get there I have to do something first, and it's the getting there that I think I will hate a lot. I guess I want to write for a magazine. That would be interesting since writing news is too boring for me. I want to write about something I can at least find interesting, and writing for a niche magazine would be that.

Aside from that, I have no job plans. I have a year left of college or more and as that time gets closer I just get more and more afraid. But I think I have the right to be. It's scary, life, I mean. Now don't ask me what I want to be when I grow up again or all I will say is the lyrics to that Beach Boys song.

Something I want to know about MU

Why does no one on-campus at MU seems to care about MU? On the weekends it seems like most of the people here just leave and don't care anyway. You hear stories about people who spend more time at home than at the dorm they pay money to live in, and nobody seems to participate in the programs that were made specifically for them. Instead you find more people from off-campus who don't even go to our schools showing up for events, or seeing our games, or listening to our radio, or reading our newspaper.

I guess the only thing we can do to get people to want to do stuff is feed them and give them free stuff, but hey, not even that works. In the end it looks like the offer of beer would be the only thing to get people to show up.

That's only a quick thought-out opinion from one guy who goes to events and finds people not from MU and is annoyed, but I'm sure there are others in the same boat as me thinking the same thing.

Lawrence.com

1. Lawrence.com serves it's town by giving details about what there is to do such as eat, movies to see, shows to see, and whatever. By doing this they serve the public interest by informing them on local events that are scheduled and don't try to bring news that anyone can find some place else. They are serving their market of the Lawrence area and no one else.

2. The appealing thing about this site is that it gives plenty of opportunities and ideas to take them up on. If I went to this school that is far from anywhere I would want to spend my free time doing fun things that are interesting like going to concerts and eating out and seeing movies, and this site has all of those things. It also has good music and entertaining videos.

3. Based on the content the target audience is definitely someone aged 16-30. Basically the common college student.

4. The writing style of the site is very conversational, but straight to the point. They write rather punchy, which is attention-getting and it doesn't seem to get bogged down with useless words.

5. The use of media on this site is...well, let's just say they used it a lot. There are two whole sections that use media, these being the video and audio sections. Not only that, pictures are always in the use at the site.

6. There is a wide community of users based on some of the sections I viewed. As for interactivity, there is a place to post pictures, a place to leave comments, and a place to look at other registered users, of which there are 535.

Overall, it looks like a good site for college students in that area to find out what the heck is going on in the social scene of shows, movies, and "whatever".

A Penny Saved is a Penny Lost?

Recently, those in the American government and beyond have decided, "Hey, do we really need the penny?" The American one-cent coin, commonl-known as the penny, was found to cost more to make than it actually is worth and so the elimination of it by a bill in congress was proposed by Arizona Rep. Jim Kolbe. The bill would eliminate the penny from transactions outside of digital transactions (ones using credit cards) and in place, all purchases would be rounded to the nearest nickel. http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/18/news/penny/index.htm

There are a few reasons why this move makes any bit of sense, and that is the fact that has already been mentioned: it costs more to make than it is actually worth. This can be attributed to the rise in zinc prices, which make up about 90% of the cost it takes to make a penny. Due to being over that one-cent in cost, being about 1.23 cents in production, we are losing money each time we are making it.
Conversely however, if we did change to using nickels, well, they have the same problem and cost more to make than they are actually worth, in fact, it costs 5.73 to make a nickel. So in truth, it actually would be more of a waste on money to switch to strictly nickels than to remain at the status quo.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-05-09-penny-usat_x.htm

At the same time, the main supporter of the bill is Rep. Kolbe from Arizona, and one of Arizona's main resource is that of copper. http://www.admmr.state.az.us/Publications/ofr06-23.pdf Arizona supplies 65% of the copper used at the mint, this report states. The United States Mint states that while the penny uses about 2.5% copper in it's production with the rest being zinc, the nickel is 75% copper and 25% nickel. http://www.usmint.gov/faqs/circulating_coins/index.cfm?action=faq_circulating_coin This seems to be a conflict of interest for Rep. Kolbe. In this case, it makes sense why the penny should be eliminated while the nickel (which is more expensive to make) should remain, and that is simple, someone wants money of their own. If the penny were to be removed from circulation and transactions are rounded to the nearest five-cent, than that would mean more production of nickels. This instance would mean only good things for Arizona who happens to supply the bulk of the copper which the nickel is mainly composed of.

The final thing to consider is the simple fact that people use pennies despite the fact they seem useless to the common eye. They are good for charities who collect change, and also good for people to collect to build up money. Not only that, they can be used on the parkway despite the time it takes to use them as well as the fact the workers don't appreciate them. Still, they can be used, and some people use them often.

After seeing several sides of the issue it is safe to say that it is not possible to get rid of the penny without there being monetary and value losses.

Fark.com

To further look into sites that supply news, I went to fark.com, and oddly named site.

1. When you compare fark.com to the previous sites, cnn and msnbc, the first difference you can see is in the fact that this site isn't about posting it's own news, it's to direct you to other sites through links. It is also heavily interactive as opposed to the other sites who had just the bare-minimum. Everything on this site seems to rely on the interaction among the audience.

2. The use of content is split by tabs. Here people post stories categorized by the type they are, such as amusing, cool, scary, and so forth. It also is not focused on news, but stories sites have posted as news that should not have been.

3. There is no real writing style. Just summaries that direct you to crazy stories that are not news that people are trying to pass as news on ACTUAL news companies.

4. The site uses images a lot, but only as stories. For the most part the site is just a plain posting place, a bullentin board. The only photos are the logo for the site and ads. There are also pics for the logos of news companies when a story from them is linked here. Photos are also content at times.

5. Impartiality? Everything has an emotion tag to it, so if that is something without opinion you must be lying. Also, just coming in with the bias that all these stories are things the mass media is passing to an audience since there isn't any REAL news there is no room for impartiality even if the general public would find it to be a waste of news.

6. What Fark.com has done is build a good community of people around it. You can submit stories. There's a forum, a place to give feedback and an RSS feed. So yeah, they have made a strong effort in building a community.

Rock Out

This past Saturday was the Rock Out to Support Our Troops concert at Anacon Hall. The major disappointment was that there was a lack of MU students at the event. The event in question though was for a very good cause and also held in honor of Christopher Cosgrove, an MU alumni who was killed in Iraq last fall. All the proceeds from the $12 tickets went to support Marines Helping Marines and Soldier's Angels. Both of these groups work to help the Marines and other troops overseas from the littlest to the biggest things. Most of the help comes in the form of making it possible for family and friends to remain in contact with their soldier wherever they be stationed.

Even though I was working the event and did not have to pay, I still did, and I'm a cheapskate, so if you think that makes you feel bad, it should. You can still help support our troops through various organizations, so feel free to.

Also at this event were several local bands. Most of them were decent enough, but the one that got me was Stealing Jane who was a jam band. Their energy was all over and the music was good. For those who did not show up, you missed out.