Reflections on Blogging

Since we've started this blog I've been thinking about subjects I could blog about.  I came up with one idea right away, and then a little later I thought of one more.  I thought I wouldn't have a problem coming up with six blogs at all.  But then I had trouble thinking of another idea for a while, and when i finally did I was busy and had to put it off. I ended up putting off until it was no longer relevant, so I tried to think of a new idea, but again I had trouble.  The point of all of this is that I had a very difficult time with something that should be simple.  Creating content for a blog is a difficult task that requires a great deal of thought.  This experience has taught me a great deal about what to expect in the future when creating content for social media. I now know that a blog can only be productive if there is engaging content presented in a timely manner.

How Can Ron Paul Still Not Be Getting News Coverage?

Ron Paul has been consistently third place in the primaries for the past few weeks, but for some reason no one will talk about him.  I find this particularly confusing now because Cain dropped out.  So Ron Paul as the third highest ranked candidate should be the topic of discussion as the second highest ranked candidate, but for some reason all the media attention has gone to Gingrich.   What are the people who handle Ron Paul's campaign doing?  How have they not gotten more discussion about Ron Paul going on.  With Paul's consistent message and long history of participation in the presidential primaries he should be able to get some kind of media attention.  I don't know what they could do to get the attention to Paul, but they should definitely be using this opportunity to gain Paul more attention.

My day as a journalist

This semester I took a journalism course.  All PR major are required to take a journalism course, but this has been the only class that required me to be published as part of my grade.  As a result I've reported on a number of events.  All of them were pretty low impact with the exception of one.  On Sunday I covered the construction of the worlds tallest Lego Menorah, and much to my surprise it was receiving legitimate news coverage from Long Island outlets like Newsday and News 12 as well as myself. The event which was by far the most complete management of the stories I've covered.  When I arrived I mentioned that I was covering the story I was immediately led to the person in charge who introduced me to the person who was handling the media.  As you can imagine this was an awkward experience for me. As someone who does not feel like a journalist or plan on ever being one, to call myself a journalist felt almost like lying.  But I was in fact acting as a journalist in this situation so I introduced myself as a journalist with the Long Island report.  At which point the woman handling the media gave me a skeptical look.  Once I mentioned that the Long Island report was a website she gave skeptical look and immediately looked it up on her phone when she couldn't find it (she put .com Long Island Report is .org) she informed me that she couldn't find it not quite rudely, but certainly in a way that made me a little uncomfortable.  Once she found the website she was a slightly more helpful, but I still felt a little bit out of place.  What I discovered during this experience is that the way you respond to any journalist is important even if you have never heard of them or there organization. The Long Island Report isn't the most well known news source on the Island but it is a completely free news source that serves Long Island.  So if you want your story to be seen on Long Island it is a good source to have.  But even if a source is only read by 10 people, 10 more people is  10 more than you would have without them so every journalist should be made to feel comfortable regardless of the size of their establishment.