Should we care what is real?

David Carr's recent New York Times article addressed his journey tracing back to the source of a famous photograph posted anonymously online. The photograph, which went viral on websites like Reddit and Gawker, depicted exploding manhole covers in Omaha, Nebraska. Carr's article draws attention to the amazing things that are going on all around the world that are being captured by regular people. These regular people, however, become citizen journalists just by snapping photographs with their cell phones and posting them to sites like Twitter or Instagram. The great irony left from Carr's story is that he was forced to log off the web and enter into the real world in order to track down the photographer who captured the image that shocked the public online.

The photograph that David Carr tracked down, taken from an Omaha apartment building.

It was especially interesting to hear David Carr, who has become somewhat of an embodiment of mobile media through his constantly-updated Twitter feed and success in embracing the future of news, discuss the importance of breaking away from the Internet in life. As Carr writes, "Shoe leather never looked or smelled so good." Carr appreciates the importance of returning to "real" reporting that used to make up the industry of journalism.

Through his description of the trail he followed to track down the famous photograph, Carr establishes the point that much of the journalism and photography online today is unattributed or unclaimed by an author. The danger in this seems very apparent: people can post just about anything, real or fake, and pass it off to be believed by the masses. It is almost impossible to establish the legitimacy of something when we have no idea where it comes from. Carr seems to agree. He wrote, "But at a time when almost everyone is beyond caring what is real or fake onscreen, knowing that, in this case, someone who is paid to get to the bottom of things did just that is somewhat comforting."

-David Carr

While our class has spent a lot of time reading about and discussing the benefits of citizen journalism, we have spent much less time focusing on the dangers of individuals participating in creating news when they have absolutely no credibility, background, authority, or reason to tell the truth. Here I am again reverting back to the idea of earning your voice a la Kathleen Parker, but I believe that this is one of the cornerstones that must be defined in the changing industry of journalism. The fact that everybody has the accessibility to create news does not mean that everybody has the license to do so. I understand the effectiveness of citizen journalism in that it allows reporters to have eyes and ears in places where they are unable to personally report on a scene or event. However, in the end I agree with Carr that there is an irreplaceable importance that "real"reporting brings to America. Being able to trust the people who provide our news is a key factor in maintaining effective journalism in America. We must call for journalists to be held accountable for their words, and we can do so through establishing a criteria to define journalists as a specific group, not the entire public.

iPad Apps According to Meg

My goal of the week was to explore the app store and expand the list of apps I use. Basically, I wanted to force myself to take advantage of all the cool things my iPad can do, which I may as well use! Most of the things I tried out were journalism related, and the ones I particularly liked were apps that will help a lot with school and classes...

So without further ado, here are my reviews. The award for top app goes to....

1. HootSuite! This app makes it insanely easy to follow our Notre Dame #NDJED thread by allowing me to save the search and create a feed solely to follow tweets with our hashtag. By not having to specifically search for the #NDJED feed every time I open Twitter, I have found myself following the class feed more closely, and taking the time to read and comment on other people's tweets more often. This is, after all, why we have the feed. I'm glad we are taking full advantage of the #NDJED feed and happy that HootSuite will help me follow it as closely as I can. It could potentially allow me to follow Facebook in the same window, if I chose to hook mine up.

The app HootSuite is great for allowing me to follow our class #NDJED hashtag.

2. Evernote reminds me a little bit of Pinterest, but is useful in a more academic way. For me, it has been helpful to just have an outlet to record all of the thoughts going on inside my head, and to tag things that seem interesting so I do not forget them. The app allows me to keep track of cool things I come across on the Internet, keep track of reminders, post and save pictures, etc. While there are other apps on my iPad that can do these things, the most helpful part of Evernote is that you can save and export your account so that it can be shared with others (great if you are working on a group project of some sort). Also, it keeps all of your ideas in one place. This app is great.

3. Dropbox is an oldie-but-goodie that I discovered last semester. If you are a student working with multiple devices, such as an iPhone, iPad and laptop, Dropbox is a must. It is especially helpful to allow me to send photos back and forth between my devices, but I also use it to send readings/articles/papers from my laptop to read later on my iPad.

Dropbox is great for transferring academic documents among devices and transferring photos as well.

4. Photoshop Express is another app I worked with, and I would highly recommend it. It's free, which is awesome. Although I usually use photo-editing apps like Instagram or iPhoto, Photoshop Express has more effects and allows me to crop/enhance photos so that they look even better. I think this will be a really helpful app to use when putting photos up in my blog or in projects later in the semester.

5. Ustream has been used by many people in our class to broadcast all of the exciting things going on at Notre Dame. This app is awesome because it allows you to still take advantage of the many events that are happening without having to go to all of them in person. Especially at a school like Notre Dame where cool things are going on all the time, I forsee this app becoming really useful in our #NDJED class. If any student is attending an interesting lecture/speech/event on campus, they can Ustream it for everyone to see and then the rest of the class will be able to tune in. This weekend Fiona did so with the Meyo run and it was great to be able to watch that even though I didn't make it over to watch it in person.

Fiona's Ustream broadcast of the Notre Dame Meyo Run on Saturday, February 2.

6. Banjo has a great idea behind it: make an app where all of your social networks can work as one. The app is cool in that it allows you to input your current location and see what is going on across many social networking sites all around you. However, the app is somewhat hard to understand at first, not the most user-friendly. Also, some of the information seems irrevant because it is posted by people you may not know.

So, there's my thoughts. These apps were all free or cost only a few dollars, and they all helped to expand what I can use my iPad for greatly. They also just make life easier in many ways. Using them in conjunction with my all-time favorite apps like Feedly, Flipboard, PDF Notes, and Readability has allowed me to expand beyond just using my iPad to read the news and check email. These apps show how the iPad is getting better at bringing us future of news. The addition of these great apps to the device make it even more usable and helpful in daily life.