On December 26th, 2004 an earthquake with a 9.1 magnitude hit Sumatra-Andaman; the 6th deadliest earthquake was not the only incident of that day. Roughly an hour after, a Tsunami occurred, creating further damage and more deaths. Although the earthquake was centered in Sumatra-Andaman, it affected most of the other countries in Southeast Asia. Because these natural disasters occurred with little warning, news corporations were unable to report on the initial damages and occurrences. This brings me to the main topic of this post: VLOGS and their impact in the media, specifically relating to the earthquake/tsunami.

Major news corporations were unable to cover the event and therefore people who wanted information about it had to look elsewhere. Blogs and Vlogs became a source of information for people to gather information. With countless videos taken with handheld devices camera phones, they became invaluable resources for news. Not only was there footage of the Tsunami actually happening but it was from the point of view of people actually experiencing it. Most of the videos were poor quality or grainy, but this added to the personal quality that allowed viewers to experience the terror and chaos through the eyes of someone actually experiencing it. Had major news corporations been there to capture video and photographs, it is likely the footage would have been clear, focused and edited, which would not have evoked the emotions the others videos did. Although Youtube was not out at this time, people found ways of sharing their videos and stories- blogs.

The ideas of blogs had been around for a while but this was a new way of using them, to report news. They were a way for citizen journalists to share news that big news companies did not have access to. The bloggers uploaded video footage of the tsunami but did not expect the large amount of traffic their sites received, some bloggers were even fined because they exceeded their bandwidth. In response, aggregate sites jumped in to help, two examples are the waveofdestruction and media bloggers association. This foreshadowed and emphasizes the importance of websites like youtube which hosts many different videos.

Additionally, today there are various websites and systems that have improved the way we communicate and share news. One example of that is twitter, where you can share a thought in  140 characters max. The option to follow other twitterers, allows you to get instant updates in real time. This has been used in the case of natural disasters to keep family members informed of what is going on and to locate missing people. Another example would be Facebook where people post something and simultaneously all of their friends can see it- easier than individually emailing or calling people. I remember in the recent earthquake in Japan my Aunt posted on her Facebook a message confirming that Tommy (my cousin who lives in Japan) was ok. It was a fast and easy way to let everyone know at once that he was safe.

Lastly, I would like to mention the way news sites get hold of personal videos for personal use. Many times news sites will pay people to use video but a comment was made it class about how news sites are trying to get out of paying- for example, CNN has come up with ireport where you can upload news videos to share them with others. This is an easy way to gather news footage from average citizens without paying for it. With the technological advances, it increasingly becomes easier for citizen journalists to report.

Here is a videos of the Tsunami:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9myoVB6m4Wg

McKenna Duffy

As many may know The Drudge report, a blog put together by Matt Drudge is known for its’ simple layout, clever headlines and maybe most famously for exposing Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

A little bit about Monica: The Lewinsky Scandal

After graduating from Lewis and Clark college in Oregon, Lewinsky landed an internship in the White House in the mid 90s. While working there, she became friends with Linda Tripp, also an employee of the White House. Confiding in Linda, Monica told her of an affair she was having- with Bill Clinton! Though Linda was a friend of Monica’s, she felt it necessary to expose this inappropriate relationship. Linda leaked the story…but surprisingly the first source to hear of the affair decided not to report it. Why? I presume they did not want to be the ones speaking out against the president. Who does?

If you are like me and want to find out more about the Scandal watch this interview with Monica Lewinsky. It provides an interesting look at the scandal from her point of view.               Click here for the link to the interview. Additionally this here is another video from Bill Clinton’s point of view.

Then came along Matt Drudge: The founder of the Drudge Report

Mr. Drudge the founder of the Drudge Report (founded in 1997) decided the affair was something the American public needed to hear, so in 1999 he made the news public and put himself on the map of internet sights to be sure to visit. On the site he links articles from other news sites, posts his own comments about current events and gives advice.

In the beginning, Mr. Drudge presented many conservative views backed by other conservatives so recently when he reported about Gingridge many conservatives were upset.

For Matt Drudge it wasn’t about who he wrote about but what he wrote about. He wants to get the news out there for people to read and if this means he is viewed as more of libertarian than that is fine.

DID YOU KNOW: Matt Drudge runs the blog all by himself!!

It is not a flashy site, but Mr. Drudge uses flashy headings (made up by him) to attract people to the links. He certainly has made a name for himself, with 10,186,259,484 visitors just in IN PAST YEAR. 

Overview: What makes the Drudge Report special

Matt Drudge created the Drudge Report with the goal of providing news to the people. He constantly pushes the limit on what can and can’t be exposed to the public. But most importantly he has learned to pick out the news that people want to know. He is an effective aggregator of news who knows his audience well. Who knew a citizen journalist/reporter with a self run blog would become so influential in the news reporting world.

One last note: How does he make money?

During today’s presentation a note was brought up about how Mr. Drudge makes his money. I presume it is the adds, which in fact do exist on the website. Free standing as well as popup adds appear on the page, though not as many as some other websites display.

MATT DRUDGE created a place where he could decide what news was important and what was not. He is a good example of how one person can make affect the way so many people view and interpret  the news.

Here is an interview with Matt Drudge himself. Interview.