Quality

I’ve long been a believer in the power of Citizen Journalism, but I’ve never seen myself as any kind of expert or leader in the field.  One of the things missing in the field has been a definitive primer on quality in Citizen Journalism.  No one has written one yet, so I’ve decided to write one myself even without credentials.  Given the topic, why not?

Lighter than Air

When I read that Rush Limbaugh fell for a hoax that was said to be a college thesis by President Obama, I immediately thought of the old joke.  What’s the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?  One is a flaming Nazi gasbag, and the other is a dirigible.  This doesn’t come to mind just to diss the MahaRushie, though.  It ties everything back to the best hoax we’ve had lately, the sage of Balloon Boy (aka Crawlspace Boy) Falcon Heene.  The two events share more than being a hoax because they are both more about the victims of the hoax and exactly what they believe – or want to believe.

Reboot

It happens all the time.  You are working away, doing absolutely nothing wrong, but deep inside the system there is an unseen flaw.  Everything starts to bog down, and eventually you see it’s come to a screeching halt.  The only choice you have is to reboot, a three-fingered salute done with either a flourish or a quiet sigh of desperation.  You’ve all been there at some point on a computer, but it can also happen with elaborate planning processes.

The time has come to reboot the Central Corridor in Saint Paul.

Big Mac Index

Very few people in the USofA have ever worried about currency exchange, at least once they returned from a vacation in another nation.  The US Dollar has been a stable rock in the world that simply has not been subject to the ups and downs of foreign commerce as much as other currencies.  That may be about to change dramatically, so it’s worth thinking about how currencies move in the mysterious world known as Foreign Exchange (ForEx).

Newsbobber

One of the hottest topics in journalism is the future of the craft itself.  Newspapers are laying off reporters at a rapid clip at the same time that technology has made “citizen journalists” out of any blogger willing to take up the handle.  What is the future of a profession that appears to be in such decline?  Like many careers, journalism is clearly going to change in ways that are hard to predict right now.  The future may lie in a bit of the past and a bit of innovation, as shown by the excellent new aggregator of Minnesota blogs, Newsbobber.