Opinion writing and editorial pages have to be changing with blogs everywhere accessible to the so-called voiceless. The Internet has made the voiceless not so voiceless anymore. We should get Dylan Smith and Sarah Garecht Gassen in the same room to find out what happens to the Editorial Page when everything moves online. We spoke with Sarah Garecht Gassen about this briefly yesterday, but I think we could have had an interesting lengthier discussion had time permitted. Everyone thinks they are an opinion writer now, don't they?
Gassen's work has to be changing or a revolution has to be on her horizon. I know the world of book publishing has evolved because publishers now approach bloggers with a large following to write books. Look at the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, or educators like the Book Whisperer, Donalynn Miller, who have not only sold books, but found themselves with more career opportunities all stemming from their blog success.
Wise and business savvy opinion editors would have to be exploring the blogosphere for potential opinion writers with a large following -- larger than any following for a veteran reporter deciding to make the switch to the editorial page. I am reminded of Terry, a guy with whom I worked at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He yearned to be an opinion writer. He had run a small paper and had worked for the Star-Telegram for some time. Every time a position came open on the Editorial desk he interviewed and they chose someone else. Today, Terry could build a blog following and that could provide him some leverage when approaching the opinion editor for a job.
Why does this matter to journalism educators? I'm thinking we turn (using Gassen's lessons on writing opinion pieces) ambitious bloggers into skilled opinion writers, with the potential to build a large following. We might be improving the writing of bloggers out there, and gaining readership for our online and print publications.
Rhonda Dickens
Chisholm Trail High School
Fort Worth, Texas
Rhonda - I love this suggestion. I run a very dynamicm but private class blog for my freshmen English students and I would love to get some of those voices to apply themsleves to our online student news. They seem to love it just enough to do it, but not enough to show up for the 'activity' or club newspaper meetings. Thoughts anyone?
ReplyDeleteSure, the internet is saturated with opinions but most wouldn't score well on a rubric for the kind of opinion writing Sarah Gassen teaches. I don't know what kind of change you're predicting, Rhonda, but I hope it doesn't have to do with relaxing standards.
DeleteBridget - I use a blog for my freshman English class, too, and I gradually add requirements as we move from "just write something, please!" in September, to consistently well-written paragraphs by the spring. I love your idea of moving some of those from the blog to the newspaper, but the writers will have to be willing to learn enough to turn their paragraphs into print-worthy opinions.
Sara Hennes
Rhonda,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you! And I also think that we, as teachers of the published opinion, can also teach taking RESPONSIBILITY. When blogging, many feel utterly protected behind the wall of anonymity, and I think it's created a truly mean society in a lot of ways. These people wouldn't freely fling hurtful and damaging "opinions" around if they had to face the people they blog about. Perhaps we can embed a sense of ownership for their words and the results of those words. It’s fine to have opinions, but share the ones that matter, and seek not to hurt.
Great post!!
Thank you so much for writing this. I am going to be doing my news article on blogs as a writing tool in classrooms since I am seeing it from the computer aspect and the journalism aspect. I completely understand what you, Bridget, and Janice are stating about the need for students to have voices and yet be aware of their responsibility. I am thinking there needs to be some sort of framework established for students to be truly capable of doing a blog and still going through the writing process to a point as well.
ReplyDeleteHeather Jancoski
Desert Sands Middle School
Phoenix, AZ
I really need to work blogging into my class. I need to explore the option and tests different avenues. By not doing so I am hurting my students. I do think about how blogging could lacks the standards of writing. I know for my self, I am a lot more personalized in writing on these blogs as opposed to writing a formal story. It might just be a mental block for me. But I think kids might have the same problem. Some blogs are set up much like Facebook, kids are used to writing about themselves. That's not always bad, but their needs to be a balance.
ReplyDeleteChad Renning
Sandra Day O'Connor High School
Phoenix
Chad, blogging with my students is one of the richest and most gratifying things I do as a teacher. Due to circumstances that are way too complicated to explain here, I had repurpose some of my classes private blog to my online student news site.
Deletehttp://therebelreport.org/?p=7358
The "Student A" was the initial blog post. (The prompt was about pet peeves, of all things!) and the subsequent Student B, C, etc. were comments.
I thought you might like to see, for inspiration sake, and I have a whole series of things I can e-mail you, (I present about this at conferences), if you're interested, to help get you started. Be not afraid. It's do-able.
Good post, Rhonda. The beauty of the Web is that it opens the door to anyone to contribute to the world of ideas. One issue I see is that these bloggers build a readership of people who largely share their opinions, so that it's frequently writing to a receptive audience. It's one more contributing factor to the increasing polarization we now have.
ReplyDeleteWhether the mainstream press has a liberal bias is now irrelevant. If you don't like what you find from New York Times columnists, who might be considered to have a liberal bent, there's plenty of conservative columnists whose opinion you will like. The problem, of course, is that if you only read in your comfort zone, you may miss a lot of good thoughts.
So to me, the issue becomes which blogger can meet a high standard of research and writing -- and whethyer you as a reader make sure you get a good sampling of opinions to make sure you're seeing all the sides.
-- Steve Caswell
What a great conversation you inspired, Rhonda! Both my high school students and my Columbia College students would agree that the Internet has helped democratized the news gathering and news producing process. And while the process has helped give more voice to the voiceless, as the line between corporate media and advocacy media continues to blur, my skeptical teens would argue to make all of us more honest, may the more ethical news gatherers "Occupy the Media."
ReplyDeleteStan West
Hales Franciscan High School
Chicago