I love links. Most of my own online reading is sparked through links on Twitter and through other articles I am already reading.

Can you imagine using Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, or onlines articles without the use of links? Chances are you would be more likely to stop reading.

I find it hard to understand that journalists used to believe that linking an article would lose readership. I personally follow specific news sources on Twitter because they link. With all of the information one can find online, it helps to have a source direct you towards something that might be relevant and interesting.

It is like the author is saying, “you obviously enjoyed this article, here’s more information!”

Brigg’s mentions a quote in Chapter 3 on this matter from Jeff Jarvis, the director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York, “do what you do best and link to the rest.”

Link journalism, as described by Brigg’s, can often be a means for collaboration between different news organizations. If more than one source comes together to help document a major event, this can add credibility and traffic back to news individual sites.

Here are a few examples of Link journalism sites:

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• Pro Publica
• Other various news sites

Here are some thoughts on Link journalism from Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University.

On Tuesday, the Susan G. Komen Foundation announced that it would restrict its previous funding to Planned Parenthood for low-income women in need of mammograms.

I found this news out not on television or in the newspaper, but on my Twitter account. My timeline was littered with posts about the Komen Foundation’s decision. Almost all of them bashed the foundation’s decision to cut their funding from Planned Parenthood.

This decision was not only documented in the traditional news outlets, but through social media avenues such as Twitter and Facebook. Articles, videos and interviews were shared and everyone was giving their two cents. There was a lot of backlash and by Friday, the Komen Foundation had reversed its decision and have posted apologies and explanations.

Here is one from the foundation’s founder Nancy G. Brinker

The Komen Foundation posted a statement on their blog to explain the details of their decision and what they plan to do moving forward.

What has happened with this particular situation has shown that social media can be used as a tool to have your voice heard. My personal reaction to this event is that social media is this generation’s picket sign. Instead of marching and waiting for news outlets to react, people are able to use their individual voices to make a clear statement about what they want.

In this case, it obviously worked. Social media isn’t just for casual conversation anymore. The conversations have become much more important and could potentially spark any type of revolution.

When Myspace and Facebook first emerged, I never worried about what pictures were posted of me or what comments were made on my page because I was a teenager and having a career was so far in the future I couldn’t even contemplate it. I was having a fun time and I didn’t care who saw it.

I wish I had known better.

What goes on the Internet never leaves the Internet, even after you have deleted a post or picture from your page. If an employer really wants to find it, they will. Best advice? Don’t post these in the first place! It will save you from having to worry about it in the future and having it cost you that dream job you worked so hard to get.

After reading this article on social media and how it can affect your job search, I now know what I need to clean up on my social media sites before I begin to network with potential employers.

There are five essential steps outlined in the article that give very good advice about cleaning up your social media behaviors.

1. Watch out with who you are friends with- Friends can post really inappropriate things on your wall without asking you first. Make sure everyone knows not to do this and delete any unsavory material.
2. If you make a site, use it!– An inactive site shows that you don’t know how to utilize social media and you didn’t finish what you started.
3. Be discreet- If you are using social media to network, don’t let employers see your interactions with other potential job opportunities as they may lose interest in you.
4. Don’t rely on your site– It is still important to utilize face-to-face interactions when networking for a job.
5. Don’t get sucked in- A lot of time can be used up while social networking. You log on to check for notifications and three hours later you realize who are still surfing through profiles and forgot to do your homework!

If you feel like you are social media savy and are looking for a career, Mashable has many job listings that are updated often for you to look through!

And just for fun, here is a cool video about the impact of social media in the world as of 2011.

[View the story “History Re(match)peating” on Storify]

How to be a blogger

Anyone can be a blogger. All it requires is setting one up through any provider, like onmason.com. But what does it mean to effectively use a blog and be a better writer? These are the issues tackled in chapter two.

Why are blogs important?

Blogs changed web publishing and journalism. They provided an online forum for people discuss different stories and provide feeback to writers. The real question is how to make the most out of a blogging experience for both the writer and the reader.

So you want to blog?

• have experience with basic news writing skills
• be an avid reader of other blogs
• learn the language used in the blog world
• make a plan about what you want to blog about and choose a blog system

You can create free blogs from sites such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com, or if you are a George Mason University student, and Onmason account.

You have your blog

Now you can begin to make your blog unique:

• pick a name
• choose the theme
• customize the layout, fonts and colors, and widgets

While you are blogging

There are several tips on how to make your blog more readable and attract a bigger audience.

• organize your ideas and be concise (most online readers scan pages and look for key elements and the move on)
• add links
• be specific with your headings (what are you going to talk about?)
• use photos and videos (blogs are interactive for the reader)
• post at least once a day
• read and comment on other blogs (they just might read yours as well!)
• put links to other blogs in your posts

The first chapter of “Journalism Next” is an easy-to-read crash course in computer and internet basics. Mark Briggs outlines how to understand:

• HTML (how to set up your own Web page)
• FTP (file transfer protocol)
• web browsers
• RSS feeds
• bytes and bites (man, I’m hungry)

Briggs gives several examples to follow along with so that any computer and online user can understand how to apply the lessons to what is most relevant to them.

The use of screen shots are especially helpful when explaining different processes such as setting up an RSS feed and how FTP works.

There is also an emphasis on the importance of learning basic programming code in order to become a better journalist in today’s online realm. Briggs outlines how to quickly and easily use basic HTML (creating a Web page) and provides several Web sites to learn more about creating these pages.

This section includes instruction on how to:

• create HTML code
• how to add photos to a Web page and alter them
• where to find tutorials on HTML code
• how to use CSS (cascading style sheets) which help add visual appeal to your page
• tutorials on CSS

The chapter ends with a checklist to help an online user jump start on how to best utilize their online experience.

Learn a little more about Mark Briggs on the Poynter website.

I never really sat back and thought about how I view content on the Internet. Which is surprising considering I have access at my finger tips 24/7.

After reading Joel Achenbach’s article, I feel that if journalists don’t keep up with the rapid consumption of news by readers, that they will be forgotten in a click from a bored reader. I am guilty of being this type of online reader. I won’t even click a link out of a Twitter post if my attention isn’t grabbed in those 140 characters.

On that note…

I feel that if readers aren’t smart about how quickly they are getting their news, they might miss what is really important. With outlets such as Twitter, tons of information is being sent out every second that it makes it almost impossible to consume it all responsibly.

With that said…

The use of online media in a story has made consuming news more interactive for the reader. By using sound bites, video, photos and links to related content many new dimensions can be added to a story that couldn’t be implemented with print.

This creativity makes a sort of competition between journalists, as Bob Steele says in Achenbach’s article, “There is some tendency, if not an outright mandate, to search for eyeballs.” Writers can now see how many people read their article in a given day, in a given hour, even in a given minute. This can give someone an incredible confidence boost if a story is popular while it could put pressure on another to have more traffic on their stories.

For the writer: It is essential that every writer remember that no matter what outlet they are using to publish their work, it is important to always remember that a story must have credibility and cannot forget the facts.

For the reader: Micro-blogs are a good place to start to look for news content, but a reader should always search for the important parts of a story; to get those healthy “five W’s” of information.