Grading Your Blog

Blogs are one more tool of journalism and are growing exponentially. Indeed, one report notes that 95% of the top 100 newspapers in the U.S. feature reporter blogs.

As one online media scholar has noted: “The blog has emerged as a powerful platform for journalists to provide context, analysis and interpretation, often including behind-the-scenes information that does not fit into the structure of a traditional news story. It has also provided journalists with a way to communicate with readers in a more conversational and informal tone, rather than in an abstract voice of authority.”^[1]

Thus this assignment.

This blog can focus on anything that trips your trigger – but one topic only. But don’t just choose a topic like politics or entertainment or business or even journalism. Focus, instead on a specific aspect of these great umbrella terms. For example, instead of posting on journalism in general, you might focus on the notion of objectivity in journalism or on how online media is changing journalism.

You will post to your blog at least once a week for the rest of the semester. The objective? To introduce you to blogging as a form of journalism – or more specifically as a form of networked journalism.

I will grade this by considering:

• Your regularity of posting.
• The quality of your content and writing.
• The quality of your links – and yes, you need to provide links.
• Whether your posts are flawlessly edit – and yes, this is important even in the sometimes wild West of blogging.
• Whether your posts are simply pontificating on your part, which is not good, or your posts reflect your deep and critical thinking about the news surrounding your topic, which is good. Think of these like op-ed pieces across from the editorial page.
• And finally, whether you avoid issues of unattributed plagiarism.

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[1] Alfred Hermida of the University of British Columbia