For the past 3 years I’ve been completely consumed by the world of online journalism. Online fashion journalism, specifically. One of the main reasons I took this class (besides satisfying a requirement to obtain my degree, of course) was to learn more about the crazy, uncontrolled world of online journalism. It sounds hyperbolic, but the internet is truly a second world. A weird, virtual world where one wrong word or misunderstood Tweet could cost you an entire career. The idea that pressing the “Enter” key could potentially terminate your life’s work, depending on how moody you happened to be on your Twitter that day, scares me greatly.
Partially because I’m a spontaneous person by nature, but also because I drink way too much coffee.
We’ve all been there. You’re on some form of social media, and you read something. Something so unbelievably, unintelligibly dumb. You start squirming; it may be the four espresso shots in the caramel macchiato you drank 20 minutes ago, or it might be the physical urge to snuff out the idiocy of uninformed people with internet access. But here’s the kicker: you can’t say anything. Because if you do, suddenly your beautifully thought-out, “edited-to-180-characters” (slightly controversial, albeit eloquent) Tweet becomes your employer’s opinion. Then you have a problem. Thankfully this isn’t a situation I’ve been in, but it hits close to home because of how easily it could happen. One espresso shot too many, and you have virtual anarchy on your hands.
Don’t get me wrong, Twitter is a huge (perhaps even the largest) source of news for me. You have to weed through a few spam accounts here and there, but for the most part it’s a very fast paced and up-to-date way to stay informed. For fashion news I am a huge fan of Fashionista; they post a balanced mixture of editorial and opinion articles, as well as some more business-oriented fashion pieces. I also frequent the good old New York Times, but most of my day-to-day updates come from social media. Obviously social media is international, but a lot of news on Twitter and Facebook comes from people who are actually experiencing the events rather than simply reporting on them, which is an aspect that makes a huge difference for me. Hopefully this class will show me how to fully utilize the internet without fear, and bring me more insight into how to relay accurate information to the public in an efficient manner. In the meantime I’ll attempt to lay off the caffeine a bit.