I think that it's amazing how far the internet has taken us in making this process a bit faster and a bit more organized.
Last Wednesday in class, I was amazed at how Professor Reisner described the origin of an excel spreadsheet, which was quite literally a spreadsheet of paper. I think that ever since computers were put together to (originally) organize data, our field had a shot at becoming more objective and at being able to have access to documents that back up our stories with more precision.
I wonder how many errors were made that may have had serious implications before the use of computers to compile large sections of information dealing with numbers, percentages and statistics.
Although technology and computers make this process a bit easier for us, I do have to say that it's a double-edge sword because we seem to start off, at least I know I feel this way, as a bit more lazy. Like, the idea of having to go to a court house really doesn't sound exciting to me. It's like an idea of , "well I guess I'll have to do that if I really can't get access to the information I need any other possible way through the web."
I think that if and when I start reporting, when I come to need documents from places like the courthouse, or places where I physically have to go, or literally call the person in charge and wager out a deal to get what I need, I'll think back on this class and remember what the teacher taught us: That even though a lot of information that we may need is accessible through the web, we won't have access to ALL of it and we need to be ready to search in the places that aren't in the web.
Just with the couple of weeks that we've spent in public records I feel that I've learned more about journalism and reporting than I have in my three semesters at FIU so far.
I have to say however, that I'm wondering how arithmetics will come into play next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment