Washington Post visit

Today's visit was a huge eye opener for me in the sense that I need to learn more skills and hone all my abilities to compete in this field. It is a broadcast vs. print battle and I am not sure there is a winner in the end. This visit made me more intersted in learning about broadcast practices and skills because it appears that that is the future but at the same time, he insisted that the key to any job, journalism or not, is strong writing skills.

I thought it was funny when he was talking about social networking and its advancements in changing the face of jounalism. I was thinking about our ethics discussion and whether it is appropriate, as a journalist, to go into chatrooms to find and meet people for possible stories. It got me thinking about finding people by social networking because even if you are not friends with someone on facebook or myspace, you are bound to know someone who knows them or a way to find them. These "friends" we have are our connection to everyone else on the internet and it is scary to think about how easy it is to find someone, it is just as easy for a reporter to find you or to create a story idea based on your conversations with friends, pictures and details. Reporters are always looking for hot new ideas!