Checked out your post. I do think mainstream journalism in general tends to focus on the negative because that’s deemed more newsworthy. And I’m not sure anyone is truly capable of being unbiased, journalist or not, because we all have opinions.

I agree with you on Obama. From what I have read from people I trust (Paul Krugman, an economist who writes for The New York Times is one of my favorites), it makes sense to stimulate the economy by giving all Americans a little more money in small doses because they are more likely to spend small amounts than a lump-sum check, which researchers have found people think of as wealth, not income, so they save it.

While increasing the deficit is troubling, it seems right now we have no choice if we want to jump-start the economy.

I think the increased voices in the blogosphere, such as your own, serve Democracy because readers don’t just get the mainstream media view, they get a plethora of ideas.

Thanks for sharing yours.

– Gina

I think you make an important point about the glossary. I’ve learned everything sort of on the fly — from the Web and techie sites, which journalists don’t typically read. (Although I think they should.)

But I agree that the language of the Web is a whole different language for journalists and a whole different set of routines from what they are used to.

I think I’ll do a glossary as an upcoming post. Thanks for the idea.

As far as SEO, that’s great that newspapers are training staffers in that. We’ve had some training at our newspaper, and it really opened my eyes and help me blog better.

Thanks for your input.

– Gina

Staffers are getting serious SEO training on a regular basis, and linking is finally becoming the thing. We had an SEO person on staff and that made such a tremendous difference.

There has been plenty of of good progress in the last year or so but plenty more remains. I hope this series of posts serves as a push in the right direction.

Just about everybody should be writing and creating conversations and interaction with readers. But before that begins there needs to be a clear explanation about why, as you provided.

A glossary would help, too: I think most newsroom personnel need to know what “crowdsourcing” is before they can do it.

One of the things that overwhelmed me when I started seeking out new media blogs were so many Web 2.0 words and phrases that we just don’t hear that much in newsrooms.

For online journalism and social marketing insiders they’re old hat; for journalists trying to grapple with all this for the first time it’s a very gradual immersion. The learning curve is steep — I speak from my own experience and I really get into this stuff!

http://ourcountryspresident.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/the-president%E2%80%99s-honeymoon-never-started/