Blog Post 10; EOTO #3 Presentation Reflections - Terms & Concepts

EOTO 3 Reflections 

    For our third EOTO, we discussed specific terms and concepts to help understand certain implications or actions within journalism. 

    The first topic that I learned about was halftone. Halftone was a new and more productive way of printing. Halftone only uses small dots of black ink to print on paper. This technique consists of breaking up an image into a series of dots to produce all of the tones within a photograph. The tiny dots use a kind of gradient effect to create certain images or words. The dots are actually made by screens that have a varying number of lines per inch, these lines determine the number of dots. For newspapers, the range is between 50 to 85 dots per inch. In higher-quality work, it is closer to 120 to 150 lines per inch. The halftone was actually quite

remarkable, as the first image was able to be published in a newspaper with this technique in 1880, seen in the image to the left. Halftone techniques are still used today, but instead of a screen, it is generated digitally. That alone proves how influential the halftone technique was and that its design is still very beneficial and effective in printing today.

    The second topic that I was able to learn more about was wire service. A wire service is a large news organization that sends stories or reports to several other news stations to help with the spread of information. One notable example of a wire service today is the Associated Press. Wire services are basically 24/7 news outlets. The Associated Press, for example, is the oldest and largest wire service in the United States. The Associated Press is also one of the preeminent news sources in the world.

    The AP began in 1864 when four New York City daily newspapers joined together to provide continuous news about the Mexican-American War. Through the Associated Press' existence, it became one of the largest and most widely trusted wire services. Today, the AP employs about 4,100 workers worldwide and has received over four dozen Pulitzer Prizes.

    Due to the impact of the Associated Press along with other wire services, wire services are extremely important and valuable to creating and distributing news across all different platforms today.

    Finally, I was able to learn a bit more about citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is any form of journalism conducted by people who are not professional journalists. Citizen journalism has had a burst in popularity with all of the new technological advancements. Think about the number of people who post important journalistic information onto websites, social media, or even blogs. This subtle act of sharing information is actually quite beneficial and some citizen journalists have provided crucial information to developing stories. For example, people in disaster zones whether that be war, climate, or other crucial events can easily snap a photo and independently report on what is going on. This kind of journalism and independent reporting is extremely helpful to professional journalists who need help
finishing a story, incorporating true facts, or using someone's first-hand experience.

    

Today, it is debated if the term citizen journalism is even accurate when describing the influence and importance of citizen journalists across the globe.

    

    While there are a number of others, these specific terms and concepts were very interesting to me and helped me in understanding some of the more specific aspects of the kind of journalism we see today.