The first rule of Journalism is not to be cynical. Every professor will tell you that from the start. Being cynical makes for bad reporting, etc. I'm one of the most cynical people my friends know. So by the rules of the professors I'm screwed. Yet tonight, I had the great pleasure to listen to renown journalist and media analyst Ellen Hume talk about the future of media. She encouraged young reporters to be cynical. To double check sources, and so on , and most importantly to challenge the government. She's an amazing woman and probably could be my idol ( only to be idolized until my neighbor becomes a martyr for some cause or another). Basically the entire lecture was focused on blogs, and the internet and talk shows. Anyone can be a journalist these days. You don't even need a degree in it, heck if I wanted too, I could quit school and go find a job right now. But because of the internet and blogging,and so on, it's becoming very difficult to find REAL news. We're getting a lot of other peoples opinions and reports that haven't been sufficently varified. We have a twenty four hour news hole that we're trying to fill. Because of the internet as a news source, many jobs in the feild of journalism are being cut, people are now trying to varify their stories with half the work force. It's not wonder people are making mistakes. I mean yes there are good aspects of the internet as a news source, but would it kill people to go and pick up a paper? I mean, what's the difference? Sure it's more convient to look online for a news story, but you really need to be careful. AOL and Yahoo,according to a study done on media outlets, have only 1% of their staffers out their getting news and varifying the facts. They rely heavily on AP and Reuters which are cutting many jobs because everyone is looking to the internet. The fact is that we are losing information for the sake of convience. This worries me for many reasons, one because this means I could very likely be unemployed for a long time, there is no job security for me in this field, two, because we already live in a country where the govt. has no problem lying to us and expecting us to believe it, and three, because we know so little about things that are going on around the world because the AP can't afford to keep reporters in other countries. I mean, other countries know more about America then we do! It's ridiculous. Hopefully it'll turn out okay...but right now, I fear for the future of the media. ....Oh yeah...and next time you hear someone blame something on the media...Ask them why?