Web 2.0 and the lifecycle of a news story

Spot of essential reading from Alison Gow for anyone interested in journalism, education or journalism education.

Alison, who blogs over at Headlines and Deadlines, has taken a look at the cycle from gathering to publication and follow-up and comparing web 1.0 to web 2.0.

I had no idea when I started doing this how thin the ‘old’ opportunities for investigating stories would look compared to the tools at our disposal now; it’s quite stark really. It drives home just how important mastering these tools is for journalists as our industry continues to develop and change.

Headlines and Deadlines

This is a quote you will see all over the place (Paul Bradshaw switched me on to this via his Twitter stream and he used this quote in his blog post) – because it is very astute. The Web 2.0 services Alison talks about are important tools that are vital to all sorts of people – you’ll see the same things being talked about in edupunk, eduwomble, PLE, loosely-coupled teaching.

Alison’s point is major – things have changed in a major way and educators need to understand we are getting the point. I’m in the middle of putting together resources on Web 2.0 for my students, so this has been a great little fillip for me.

If you don’t get why WEb 2.0 is such a big deal here’s a a video by Digital Ethnographer Dr. Michael Wesch.