Twitter and British elections

I deciced to set up a twitter account just one month ago, I heard good about and it didn't dissapoint me. I think his popularity is based on his great differences between others social networks as Flickr, Facebook or the Spanish Tuenti. Twitter is more gossip, if you aren't online you miss the information, besides allows you to be in contact with celebrities. Definitely this is why Twitter is so popular and addictive, you feel like if you were the only one who knows this information.

As a future journalist, I find it also more interesting because is actually a journalism tool. I mean you know what well-known journalist think, not with a gossip purpose just to know what is their real opinion, twitter is a quite good way of create your own opinion about the hottest topics. You are allow to know and think about experts', different journalists' and also media's opinion.

Personally I'm quite interested in the United Kingdom elections, those are the closest from a very long time and every single word could change polls or British mind. Last Thursday I wachted the finish of their first televised debate of their history, and currently thanks to Twitter I could find out which are the British media reaction, as I said before there are tiny differences among David Cameron (conservative), Gordon Brown (laborist and PM) and Nick Clegg (liberal) in the voting intention so this debate and two more which are going to be on 22 and 29 of April could be really important. With this example I want to point out the importance of Twitter as a tool not only hobby stuff, without it follow the elections and British papers and journalist would be harder but with this kind of social networks you have almost every information just one click distance.

P.S: If you're hooked on UK election please check the last electoral poll, the outsider (Clegg) could give a great surprise to Conservatives and Laborist. Moreover, his wife come from Olmedo, Valladolid (mi parents region)!! :P

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/interactive/2010/apr/16/election-2010-tv-poll-tracker

Journalism and Democracy

I was visiting diferent wepages, where they talk about new media and the "customers power" and I just realized about another difficulty that participatory journalism represents to journalist. The supposed Democracy.

The real example was told by Guillermo Lopez at "VII Jornadas: Blogs y Medios de Granada". He talks about Eduardo Inda, Marca's director. In a way I agree with him, this man is extremely sensastionalist, he actually is harms Real Madrid launching repetitive smear campains against referees or Barcelona staff. I also believe that his journalism career isn't important enough to have this kind of job and Marca is becoming a tabloid paper when it was a "pro-Madrid" media but serious and rigourous a time ago. Eduardo Inda doesn't seem to me a great journalist.

Otherwise, I think the campain against him is pretty inflated too. He's wrong in many of his stances but the group against him is mistaken too. As Guillermo Lopez says and I have personally seen it, there is people who just are waiting for a Inda's new opinion or videoblog to contanstly blame himself or critize without respecting Marca staff. Then, Marca website unaprove this coment and the "big snow ball" increase.

I mean, I am not a Inda's fan but I put myself on his shoes and believe I couldn't work or even live with an almost 20.000 member facebook group against me!!!... I think it must be crazy. What the question here is: who is less democratic, Marca deleting coments or this group of "hooligans" using (in a wrong way) their freedom?. I attached the link below, watch and review

It is actually Democracy, what we are talking about?

http://www.rosajc.com/2010/04/18/el-periodismo-de-eduardo-inda-en-marca/

The Great Challenge, Dick Van Dyke's hability

My blog's name talk about a big challenge,what I suppose you must think: What this guy is talking about? As a future journalist that I hope one day I could be, this huge challenge that my friends and I must face on is our skills' "transfer" from the old media (radio, papers and TV) to the new platforms that currently are arising.

This phenomenon has two main dificulties for us. Firstly, not everybody is keen on technology. If you don't like it is something that you're going to have vague knowledge since it is something that is not taught at schools or colleagues. Secondly, technology's flow is almost immeasurable. We could have a nice personal website where we publish our news and stuff but in only few months it could be extremely outdate, just a pair of years ago platforms as Twitter and blogs were unknown for the majority of the public. Nowadays, personal website sounds old-fashions and others are trendier.

This Challenge became bigger if your job is so deeply in touch with this technology's flow we are talking about. Teachers, firemen, bankers or even politicians are not obligated to change their work style in a short period of time; they can be neglected "technologers" and it isn't going to sway in their careers. The great challenge of today's journalist is being update to every single new stuff that could be a media develop, you must nudge over the others in order to make your own label, you must be a kind of orchesta-man who is aware of new things and immediately could manage to be a number one on it.

In a way, you should be as Dick Van Dyke at Mary Poppins, appear when nobody expects you and surprise the audience whit a new skill. If you are a journalist you have to be aware to be great pavement painter or an excellent chimney sweeper.