OUR FIRST BLOGWORKS POST

   Photo illustration by D. Doyle

I was one of those no-nonsense hard news reporters for a large southern paper who worked with typewriter, reporter’s notebook and big-leaded copy pencil for a decade before heading to grad school for a degree I hoped would pay better than in bylines.

Concise  just-the-documented-facts journalistic writing, born of limited “newsholes” on actual paper newsprint, is dying.  It is replaced by online journals written by enthusiastically untrained opinionists launching words into cyberspace on web logs or “blogs.” Yes, I bitterly miss my clacky manual typewriter.

“I DON’T WRITE A BLOG,” said a friend who wrote and edited big-circulation magazines but now writes and illustrates http://www.thecelebrityfrontpage.com. “I am an online journalist.” He was accurate with his facts behind is self-image. Much online is social pablum, not-so-sly self-promotion, and poorly conceived attempted trendiness.  It is rarely compelling writing with illustrations that draw the eye and the reader’s interest.

Blogs or online journals proliferate online with topics ranging from astrophysics to teddy bears to zymurgy. Whatever you choose to call them, they are an online fact of technological life.

BWorks is evolving, too.  We will soon offer classes to our kids on how to blog effectively, creating interesting copy and art that we hope will illuminate young minds. And maybe develop future online journalists who will set a new and higher standard for blogging?

More to follow from our less jaded kid bloggers!

DD