A Huge Step in Citizen Journalism: Liveblogging Experience

Brittany Shammas

I have to say, liveblogging for The Detroit News was a bit more stressful than I’d envisioned.

Picture the scene: a slew of desks arranged in groups around separate TV screens, occupied with students typing madly away on their laptops. An unreliable internet crashing consistently. Plates of pizza passed from desk to desk. Onscreen, Republicans tearing each other’s heads off. Oh, what a night.

I spent a good deal of the two hours praying for a commercial break long enough to allow me to type a blog. Madness, I tell you.

But all in all, the event was certainly worth the stress. A chance to blog for The Detroit News? So worth it. Just the experience of contributing to a major news organization was invaluable to a freshman journalism major. After all, we’re all just trying to get our feet in the door.

And I’d say having my name and picture on the site is a start, even if all of the MSU bloggers were plagued with criticism by a particularly negative commenter, who accused us of being uninformed and thus not “real” journalists.

From the experience I learned to, as Bonnie Bucqueroux advised, grow a thicker skin. I learned how important time management can be in blogging, and additionally, how to format a web page!

I think the YouTube debate was a great step toward increased democratization in presidential elections. In a government that is “by the people, for the people”, what better way to further that than allow ordinary people to participate directly in government?