A Blog About Blogs

I chose to examine the Coconut Grove Grapevine Blog because I was drawn to its function. The function of the Coconut Grove Grapevine is to report the daily news of Coconut Grove, Florida – a neighborhood of around 20,000 people. It informs people living both in and outside of Coconut Grove about the activities and happenings in that neighborhood. Subjects in the blog range from events coming up, to updates on the local legislation, and information on local businesses.

I think it’s a great use of a blog to keep a small community of people informed. In a more traditional medium – like a newspaper or a mainstream website – this information would be less accessible and detailed. A blog is a great way for a community member to take this task into his own hands.

I like the style of the Coconut Grove Grapevine. When I read a blog, I’m not as much interested in random musings and people’s opinions. I like blogs that like short, simple internet stories. The posts were short, informative, and to the point. It was approachable and easy to read. There were a lot of links the viewer could to go to get more information on a subject. There were links to easily sign up for things, email people, etc.

Tom Falco is the editor and publisher of the Coconut Grove Grapevine Blog. I’m not sure of his background, but it seems from the blog posts that he is a Coconut Grove resident who wants to keep his community informed, as well as draw others in. While he uses links well, I think he should use them more to cite his sources. He refers to “a study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute”, but then doesn’t have a link to the study. I think the site would be more credible if he did that more often.

The only thing I didn’t really like about the blog was the layout. There were a lot of paid advertisements which are a little distracting. It seems like advertising is a big part of the site and that Falco wants ads on it, but there are distracting.

I like that this blog is more factual than opinionated. I think that I could potentially write a blog like this. As of now, I prefer the blogs that are short and informative without much opinion and interpretation because those are the kinds of blogs that I read. Because I’m more familiar with this kind of blog, I would probably be better writing one that is more factual and objective than opinionated. I would rather summarize than comment on situations.

The Coconut Grove Grapevine serves a great purpose and uses the blog medium well. Information that probably used to be scattered all over the place and difficult to find is now all on one well organized site. I like this particular blog because it has a great purpose and is simple and informative rather than the about the blogger’s opinions. I think it would be fun to write a blog about a local neighborhood, and I personally would be more comfortable writing that kind of blog.

We want soft news!

Today Michael Jackson’s funeral is all over the news. While this is an interesting story about one of the most famous celebrities ever, there are much more important stories the public needs to know about. Forest fires in California and health care reform for example.

I find it troubling that I see more soft news on the front pages of dominant publications and websites every day. The important stories are there, but not as much as I would like to see.
Consumers of media want to be entertained, especially on the internet. They go there for interesting feature stories. Why read that depressing story about war when I can read that interesting story about the new actor on “Entourage”.

In one of my classes earlier this week, the students were instructed to choose an interesting story from the BBC for a class exercise. This was the story that caught the class’ eye.

This funny feature story is what the class was interested in. It doesn’t affect CU students, but it’s an interesting story. Consumers are searching out softer news, not the hard news that they need.

The three most read stories on Denverpost.com are all sports stories. One about the Broncos, one about the CU/CSU game, and one about the Dallas Cowboys being the most valuable team in the NFL. I enjoy sports just as much as anyone else (probably more), but I think people need to be informed about issues other than sports. People should be reading the stories about President Obama’s speech and forest fires – Things people need to know about.

People are choosing to consume stories about Michael Jackson, monkeys and sports rather than politics and the economy. The media feels they have to make people happy by keeping the interesting, softer news stories coming because that’s what people want to read.

But should the media cater to the public’s desires in this area? Is it the media’s job to inform the public so they can be an informed citizen in a democracy? Does covering what people want to read rather than what they should read conflict too much with traditional media ethics, or is this just the way that contemporary ethics are going?

It’s good for consumers to be able to customize what news they pay attention to, but they are choosing to pay attention to fluff news and passing over important issues.

So what can the media do? Why aren’t people watching? What are their options? The media can’t force information down people’s throats. They can’t make people care about the important issues.

The media can wait for consumers to want hard news or rely on the ones that do. They can keep covering important news the same way and hope people want to read it. They can change how they cover important issues and try to get people excited. Maybe there is a way to be informed and entertained.

Either way they need to figure out why people aren’t interested in things like politics and the economy because those are important things everyone needs to know about. If the media doesn’t inform, this will be less of a comedy and more of a reality.