Response on “Journalist Next” Chapter 1

Back to the Basics

Mark Briggs’ online journalism textbook “Journalism Next” was written with a specific audience in mind. For those journalists who’ve been in the field for a long time and are just starting to switch over.

In the class’ case, there are those who haven’t learned the online journalism skill-set they need to succeed. Briggs’ book is perfect for this demographic as well.

The first chapter gives the reader a very rudimentary introduction to basic tools available to the online side of the news, whether it’s creating or reading it. It touches on the internet, RSS, file transfer protocol and basic web-design.

For me, most of this information I’ve experienced through a class at Mason or through people showing me.

RSS or “really simple syndication” is something that people see everywhere on news sites, but it wasn’t until I read the text that I understood the information service.

It essentially is a “back door” online newspaper. Companies or news organizations can send out stories or information through the feeds, sending them to those who subscribe to the feed. I honestly don’t see myself using RSS, but I’m glad that it’s available to journalists.

Web design, as I’ve experienced before, is a very difficult monster to tame. There is memorization of HTML tags, (text commands that serve different functions), and lots of time that goes into designing a page. Web pages, using this internet language, can be very complex or very simple depending on the tags you use.