Blogs: Getting The Scoop

by Stephanie Merry
Are blogs increasingly beating mainstream media to the punch? With cases such as Comedy Central's scoop on Donald Rumsfield's resignation or even the falsified military documents that led to Dan Rather’s resignation, it seems so. Or, are these cases mere anomalies? Whether bloggers see themselves as journalists or not, they certainly serve as influential catalysts, complicating the role of mainstream media. Stephanie Merry explores the how of it all in this article, "Blogs: Getting the Scoop."
-Interested in Stephanie Merry's article? Contact her at sam2178@columbia.edu

Open Source Journalism and NewAssignment.net

by Anna-Katarina Gravgaard
Jay Rosen's new experiment in open-source journalism, NewAssignment.Net, is being met with great enthusiasm by both journalist and blogger. While there are many opportunities in open-source journalism, the question remains how this information can be attributed when working with anonymous sources and if it can be trusted at all. According to Rosen, a professor at New York University, NewAssignment.Net will involve web users in all aspects of the journalistic process, from idea generation to funding.
-Interested in Anna-Katarina Gravgaard's article? Contact her at ag2576@columbia.edu

Hector Feliciano Makes the Leap from Print to Blogging

by Lorenzo Morales
The leap from print to online can be difficult at first but eventually liberating, as Lorenzo Morales discovered in his profile of Hector Feliciano, a renowned investigative journalist who has worked in print for more than twenty years and recently made the jump to the online world. Feliciano contributes to "El Boomeran", a federation of blogs on Latin American letters owned by one of the biggest Spanish publishers, and sees the Internet as an opportunity to reinvent old forms of communication.
-Interested in Lorenzo Morales' article? Contact him at lam2164@columbia.edu

Confessions of a Journalist Digger

by David Cohn
David Cohn explores the democratization of the media through Digg.com, a social bookmarking website that lets users vote and essentially determine the best news of the day. He explores the concept that readers, not an editor, determine what should be highlighted on the front page and tackles the ethical question: Can a social bookmarker be a professional journalist? Cohn speaks with the CEO of Digg to help answer this question.
-Interested in David Cohn's article? Contact him at dc2298@columbia.edu