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quote:
Originally posted by Bob Orts
Blogs and bloggers have expanded our information base and have also curtailed our information base.
I disagree about that assessment.If my blog and other local blogs didn't exist, you would be stuck reading the Stephens Media cabal of newspapers.Thus bloggers like myself and others play a critical role on the dissemination of news on this island. The latter is a fact like it or not.
On that note, this topic is very frustrating to someone like myself.I spend a couple hours of my free time each day updating my blog. Thus I feel like I'm getting unjustly criticized because I blog.
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The problem with the Hawaii Tribune Herald is that it is less and less local every day. It is so sad that a paper with no real competition and a huge support base (seems like 90% of the mailboxes I see have those green boxes on them) cannot be true to it's readers and deliver more local news written by local writers.
I don't think anyone would say that HTH has a vested interest in anything credible. It's (owners)only "vested interest" is profit. Period. It may be going down the drain, but it is our only real print option Hilo has except for the FBI Bloggers.
Personally, my own blog is not so much about news, but food, art and culture in East Hawaii. What amazes me is the amount of readership it has from all around the world, because those things are quite Island/Community Centric.
~devany
quote:
Originally posted by Kapohocat
quote:
Originally posted by PaulW...
The problem is that a blogger can have a very definite vested interest...
And this is different from our own Hawaii Tribune Herald how?
(Owner's interest, not the writers)
FWIW -
The new FBI Blogs site has Current Journalists, Former Journalists, Radio Personalities, Engineers, Photographers, an Attorney, a Software Developer... AND AN ACTUAL MEMBER OF THE FBI as well as many other professions.
We are all from the Big Island.
Most of us blog because we enjoy blogging.
I believe most of us read the papers, and aren't trying to pretend to be "Citizen-Journalists"... just giving a little knowledge of what we like to share with others.
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FBI Blogs
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After dipping my toe in a few times, I now never read blogs. Takes too much time and I usually find they are not up to the standard of a good quality newspaper produced by professionals. There is just too much information out there and not enough time, so one must be selective and read quality, not quantity.
youser -
And that is the exact purpose of the FBI Blogs.
To provide one location where you can see when the Best Big Island Blogs have been update without having to bounce around wasting time going to sites that haven't been updated.
It also provides one platform for bloggers to post their wares... and a way to link to each other to share readership.
There is at least 5 members of Punaweb with Blogs on there.
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FBI Blogs
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Aaron, thanks for your efforts, I'll give your blog a try.
I used to read some others here but was disappointed in various ways.
Just one question: how do you know that it's a fact that bloggers
like yourself "play a critical role on the dissemination of news on this island"?
quote:
Originally posted by PaulW
"play a critical role on the dissemination of news on this island"?
Both Aaron and I (as well as other bloggers) receive alerts from county officials.
We are able to post them to the public in a more timely manner then TV, Radio or Newsprint.[  ]
And for that matter... I post them on my blog on average about 24 hours before they even hit the counties website.
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FBI Blogs
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As a famous bad guy said to a famous good guy about 2,000 years ago, "But what is truth?"
Without getting too existential, I don't believe in "absolute truth". The truth really is in the eye of the beholder, whether that's the Tribune-Herald, the NY Times, MSNBC, FOX, Hustler, or the local bloggers.
As I said above, nobody is without a point of view, meaning that everybody (and "everybody" includes corporations and those who work for corporations) has a set of filters, a set of values, a set of prejudices, a set of blind spots, etc. These things affect the way we all see the "truth", then in turn, the way we present what we see. An adjective here or there, even a simple punctuation mark, can make a subtle difference in the way a topic is presented. Back in the day, and with a straight face, most of the ivory-towered news outlets claimed to be "independant", "impartial", etc. Today we know that there really is no such thing. As consumers of information in the Information Age, we all get to pick and choose our sources.
For me, if I return over and over again to the same sources or information to the exclusion of all others, it's likely I'll get a myopic view of the world. Or at the very least, I'll tend towards adopting the point of view of whichever source I have chosen. Chicken-and-egg, maybe I'll gravitate towards the sources which match my own point of view. If I mix it up, expand my horizons, browse around, and take everything with a grain of salt with the knowledge that everybody has a point of view, then it's likely I'll be about as well-informed as it's possible for me to be. Hopefully.
P.S. This is not a slam at Aaron, Damon, or any of the other bloggers. I've read some of their stuff, and they seem like regular Joe's going about their business, reporting whatever crosses their radar. I hope bloggers recognize they're only human, also, and come with their own point of view, their own limitations. It's certainly not a bad thing, IMHO, to have more eyes and ears out there acting to keep our local government officials on the up-and-up, and the local bloggers, from what I've seen, have done that on occasion, and sometimes pretty well, like during the last election cycle. Thanks, guys, for that.
Aloha! ;-)
Aloha! ;-)
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I think centipede's and mgeary's
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Bloggers come in so many colors, shapes, sizes and forms that it's unrealistic to lump them all in one category. Some blogs are a waste of time, but I know within a couple seconds whether or not it's my cup of tea. If it isn't, I move on.
Personally, I don't think Menehune was attacking bloggers (I blog and his remarks didn't hurt my feeling at all); I think he was just throwing out a topic for discussion, and I found the ensuing comments quite interesting.
Perhaps the traditional media lulled us into believing everything they told us. But I think we all can agree that with so many new information sources out there now, more than ever we must learn to become critical readers and "digesters" of facts. I think we're in the middle of a media revolution right now. Time will tell how it all shakes out.
Tim
A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions--Confucius
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