more on mixing media

I don’t know what we’re supposed to write about today, so I’m going to rant about something. I am noticing how more and more “news” websites are becoming blogger friendly. Sites like CNN.com, ESPN, and more now encourage blogging to the point where Anderson Cooper talks about how he is blogging while he is also doing his show. Tonight I noticed that the KansasCityStar.com is becoming more like a Web 2.0 wiki than a news site. I was looking at the sports page on the website and I see a headline that read “Baylor Coached Peeved”. Now before, every time I click on something like this on this site it brings up a news story filled with quotes, facts, and a real actual journalist who wrote it. But no, not this time. What came up was one quote and a box that asks “what do you think?” Underneath there is a place for you to type your comments and for you to read other people’s thoughts. They even have this after every news article now, where the readers can leave comments for the journalist about the story and sometimes, they even blog back. This is a news site, NOT A BLOG. I don’t care about what KUhawk92 thinks about the Big 12 tournament, I want to know what is actually happening from the journalists who are supposed to be doing their job of gathering facts, not asking for everyone’s opinions. What’s next, are they going to let people start editing the stories too? I appreciate Web 2.0 and blogging, but if our news sites become nothing but blogs asking for everyone to write their opinions and have a big old blog conversation, I’m going to read the paper.