Challenging Journalism'

I like this title. Challenge. We're all up for a challenge. Aren't we?
Like Morgan Spurlock's Supersize Me documentary, 'lets get fat and eat McDonald's' challenge was interesting, factual, and did have an impact of the viewers. How much did McDonald's change its menu-post Spurlock? A lot.

To me, this kind of 'challenge' journalism was absolutely aimed at the viewer, surely Morgan himself didn't enjoy eating shit for a month, then having to review the gruesome effects it had on his body? Or maybe he did, i don't know.

But this kind of 'journalism' makes us (the public) listen and take notice, doesn't it? Watching the actual effects on a human who had consumed such crap for this amount of time, has far more impact than a story in a paper, or an advert on the T.V?

Can you call this immersion journalism? Its not investigative, its commercial. Its made for the viewer. Morgan was still himself, he didn't go undercover, he simply set himself the challenge, and recorded his findings. Without a T.V camera he wouldn't put himself through it.

This kind of challenge journalism, to me, is made for a viewer. The person/people undergoing the challenge wouldn't do it unless they had a viewer (or a lot of time on their hands) otherwise whats the point? Wouldn't this be a waste of time?

I like the 'challenging journalism' sites, like the eggsbaconchipsandbeans where a man sets out testing (it would appear to be) EVERY greasy spoon cafe, then records his findings.

I'm in fact more concerned for his health....

The blog itself is very well written, and funny. The involvement of humour and images makes this obvious he wants the readers interest (of course he does, isn't that the point?).

But seriously, he could in fact keel over at any second...arteries. Hello?

This has given me an idea for my 'challenge' blog, i want to obviously interest my viewers and keep the whole challenge updated with some images involvement...

Its going to be fun...

Google News and Google Reader...

Google News:Fantastic.

Google Reader:Not so keen on.

Google News is a great way to see all your news at the same time. Usually i look at two main sites: BBC news online, and sky news (Its so American i love it), so that i get coverage from a wider view.

I like the Google news site as you can personalise it into the order that is relevant to you... its almost like creating your own personal website of newsy stuff.
It is also great that you can type in a customised subject of your choice, and it updates your 'personalised page' with the area you have asked it for. Brilliant.

I did this for my Madeline McCann blog back in the day when we first started blogging. This was great as the investigation was still quite ongoing and there was still allot of news coverage (unlike now...)
You can pretty much do this on the Google news feed on blog spot itself. One of my faves'.

Also 'Google alerts' from the Google news website is a useful tool. Much like the customised area, you can type in a subject, give them your email address, and constant messages are sent updating you with lots of info. I also did this for my Madeline Blog, very helpful.

Google Reader i don't really like as much as Google news, this may be because i like to see everything all together on one page, as its easily accessible to me.

I do like the idea of having various, again, 'personalised' sections which you can subscribe to, categorising your feed of news into which is more relevant than others. ( Much like Google news, only snazzier.)

It is simple to scroll through the lists of news titles throughout the pages, but to me it just looks like its too thrown together, and a bit messy... Maybe a lack of pictures?

Group Blog evaluation...

Tampons and toilet talk was basically a domain for women's news, covering areas like world news, health, the obvious sex and relationships, and of course a slice of celeb stuff.

Katie and I did a total of 15 posts, trying to post at least 4 posts a day. We were taking a look at everyday news relating to women, and writing comment pieces on. I say comment pieces...we were TRYING to have the serious approach, with a little humour...

Our blog was inspired by 'dollymix' the blog which is designed for women, written by women. It covers stuff from serious news to sex toys...brilliant.

We added links which we both liked, and which related to our lady niche, they are listed as 'top ladies sites', these included sites about money, health, and of course fashion.

The video bar, labelled 'lady bar' on our blog was a bit harder to use. This was because telling a computer you want the videos to be about ladies news when customising the blog on 'page elements', just gave us a whole porn fest from youtube.

Maybe not the best idea to type in 'ladies' on 'youtube' clips... obviously just asking for it.

'Lady talk' was a news feed from Google we used to add to the blog, basically updating the blog with a stream of updated news for women. I think this worked quite well as it was accessible for our readers and gave them a wider world of news.

It was quite time consuming as there was only two of us working on it, but I would have liked to work on it a bit longer as it was fun to do.

Our mini group discussed the topics which we were going to write about beforehand so that firstly, we didn't end up writing the same thing, and also so it was balanced, so one of us wasn't just doing stuff on sex or news etc.

The picture representing our blog (yes its Katie with a tampon in her mouth) fits the bill well. Without the image, our blog just looked a bit plain. Pink, not my favourite, but apparently its girlie. whatever. I'll let that go, it looks alright.

The end.

SHINY SHINY MEDIA!

I’m loving the shiny media blogs already, or maybe just the one I’ve had a good old looking at: Dollymix. Its fab, and I reckon it does exactly what its meant to which is focusing on femininity, women’s rights, and all that stuff us girlies love without the shiteness of the oh-so-loveable celeb goss.

It goes from funny to serious, there are a variety of humorous clips from the one-and-only ‘youtube’ with spoofs of the famous Thelma and Louise (check it out), along with the more serious comment pieces by women writing for the blog.

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There is a links bit under the main navigation bar at the top of the page, which categorises the stuff that women apparently find important (I wont speak for everyone):

· Sex and relationships
· Health and beauty
· Women on top
· Politics
· Feminism
· Family

Don’t get me wrong, there are some bits about celebs, but its not a bitch fest of ‘she looks fat’ and ‘she’s had a boob job’ its questioning why these certain celebrity women are being slated, and relating to the topic in some way.

All the categories have the funny bits and the more series approaches.
In my opinion, this gives the blog a balanced agenda, the small articles are suitable for the easy read; maybe aimed at ladies at work, at leisure, on the train to work etc?
Overall working well as a blogzine.

Five or six posts are put up each day (on average) this is on the main page, they are all categorised instantly, so that the link bar (I was talking about) it updated straight away.

Advertisements fill the blog well, there’s not too many. (Which for me is always a bit of an issue, I don’t like it basically.)

Standard credit card ads, ‘lastminute.com’, ‘orange’, and an appropriate ‘celebs with no make-up on’ google ad at the top (yes, cheers google guys, makes us women feel better obviously) are the only main advertisements.

Personally, associating to companies I know which are advertising on a web page, instantly make me think about the popularity of the website;
Having ‘orange’ and ‘lastminute.com’ using Dollymix to advertise, gives the impression the website is widespread and frequently used.

Commercial blog research...

These commerical blogs are basically for a specific niche market, aiming to fufill the readers knowledge of their interest with lots of articles relating to one theme. Alot of these blogs (mainly the Denton blogs) base their interest on 'hot celeb' goss; like that Hilton bird gettin her nipples out to boost her career... (if only it was that easy) Seriously its there on blogzine Gawker.

Most of the Denton blogs (thats Nick Denton) rely on their crap but heavenly addictive celeb 'news' to make some cash; Of course this then mirrors the joy of advertisements, the more hits Gawker (or any of the blogs get) the more ad companies will want to advertise = profit!

Other blogzines include 'DS Fanboy' which is dedicated totally to the DS console, not the games, the actual console (how much is there to know?) Jalopnik dedicates its blog to the love of cars, and then theres http://www.kk.org/cooltools/ which is a 'federated media site' which yes, does what it says on the tin...sells cool tools.

Reviewing the tube

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Lonely girl.
SHES LOST ALOT OF BLOOD

Have these kids had a bit too much over indulgence of the Jerry Springer performance?
'Lonely girl' is a teenage drama series based on a bunch of kids who basically have indulged far too much Jerry Springer drama crossed with a large quantity of American shoot up movies.

From this episode on ‘youtube’, the storyline is quite unclear, if you haven’t seen the others in the ‘series’; basically a girl is shot, and her friends are fleeing from the crime scene with her.

The camera shots are blair-witch-esk to give the impression that the whole sequence is real (despite the fact the girl who has supposedly been shot, does in fact look like she’s taken a bag of mushrooms and couldn’t tell you her own name.)
The comments left are as disturbing as the footage, reading ‘is this real’? My response being, this couldn’t be more false without throwing Heather Mill’s leg in there.

It is well made, for an amateur series made for those who use youtube frequently; it is not boring to watch. Drama is good isn’t it? And that is why this youtube favourite ‘lonely girl’ will keep going; it is addictive, and fake. Just like Jerry Springer. And we love it!