Connecting

I’ve been reading G.M. Malliet’s mystery book Death of a Cozy Writer, and feeling a bit nosy I sought out her webpage and blog. I posted a comment on her site. A few days later, I find that she has found me out on twitter and is now following me.

There are some who mock me and my twitter usage, but I enjoy connecting with various authors and celebrities. I recently corresponded with Aravind Adiga, Booker prize winning author of The White Tiger. I realize that I am not on a first name basis with these people as much as I would love to be with @neilhimself, but it is nice to ask questions or comment on a work of literature or a question that I may have and to receive immediate contact this way.

The internet may be a lot of things and we all know that Social Networking will be the downfall of all of society as we creep ever closer to a 24/7 network neural life, still, you have to admit its pretty awesome when you ask an author who you respect a question and they respond back. Cheers.

My Tweets, Twitterers, Twitches….

To all my ‘Tweeps” out there, do not be alarmed but this post might exceed the 140 character limit, but do not let that keep you from readin

….g, thank God WordPress allows me to post as much as I want whenever I want.  

I think that I have too many social networks as is but I could not resist joining Twitter. Let’s see what I’m apart of: Facebook, Mefi [metafilter for those unawares ], Terry Brooks Forum, Last.fm [ Fizban1980 ], and now Twitter. If you’ve been holding out on joining let me tell you why you should. It’s not that I care about the minutia of your day to day life, or minute by minute as the case may be on twitter. 

It is because twitter connects people with people that we would otherwise not be able to connect with [ politicians, celebrities, artists, athletes, etc.. ].  I do not know about you but being able to track the goings-on of my favorite authors and artists is amazing, specifically Neil Gaiman [ @Neilhimself ]. The micro blogs that Neil posts are humorous and rich with information about his life and the process of writing and publishing, something that is not provided except by this social network and that alone is worth the sign up. Thanks to Twitter I’m now able to follow people like Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Chuck Palahniuk, Charles de Lint, and various other writers & comic artists. I’ve even interacted with a few of these people, and I find they are more likely to respond or share information via the microblog. Enjoy.

NEWS

This weekend I was listening to Rex Murphy on the CBC and the topic was NEWS.

This week on Cross Country Checkup:

The business of news is changing. Blogs, podcasts, online aggregators are all nibbling at the heels of mainstream media such as TV, radio, newspapers and magazines …and the recession is weakening them further.

Newspapers all over the U.S. are downsizing, some are closing their printshops and moving online. In Canada, several broadcasters are struggling and they’re cutting back.

What do you think? What effect will it have on the news? How do you get your news?

I tried calling in but the show is far too popular and as a result the lines were clogged. But I will throw in my two cents here.

I think the internet is wonderful and that it has made news much richer and easier to consume. Think about the old days, sorry to those who would rather re-live those times. 10 Years ago if you wanted news in your city you were most likely limited to a finite number of newspaper and media outlets. A handful of television stations and then your local newspaper, at most two or three in a city. But in today’s modern world, what with all the doo dads and internets and such… we are not as limited.

I consume my news from a variety of sites: CNN, NYTIMES, SLATE, CBC, The Guardian, Mefi (Metafilter), and various other blogs. I also consume a number of blog aggregators that link up with specific themes and topics I am interested in: BritLitBlogs (exactly what it purports to be a site devoted to British Literature Blogs). Some of these sites lean politically to the left and others to the right. And almost all of them contain sections that allow for discussion or commentary on various news or media that is being reported on.

Now of course there are some drawbacks to having this much media bombardment. It is far too easy now to only consume news or media that is associated with the politics that individuals prefer and this can marginalize and estrange people from the real world into thinking that news only has one particular filter or lens. Also, how does a person wade through this mess of the internet with so much to read and stay caught up on. Also, we now have the horror that is 24/7 news, an endless cycle of meaningless reporting on news that is not actually news.

Still despite these drawbacks the internet has brought the news to us in our homes at a very low cost. I can read the TimesofIndia from my couch at home, something that was unfathomable just years ago (cost and accessibility).

I am still a bit weary of the fact that people are now consuming news from sites like facebook or twitter. Yes, it is amazing that people now have the ability to report first hand accounts of news or action that is occurring in front of them, and it does provide other readers the ability to step beyond filters of corporations and media groups that regulate and restrict certain types of news, but then again this also allows joe-blow idiot to spout his inane commentary and views in unintelligent non-academic professional ways. [ The irony that I am doing just such a thing. ]

So what are your thoughts on the changing face of news? Is newsprint dead, should we just let that go the way so many large newspapers have been doing the past few years and shifting online. Is this shift online more problematic? Are we becoming too obssessed with consuming news and the fact that we can now tune in at any moment and be informed of everything and anything, does this provide us with too much content, content that is not edited properly or screened for idiocy???