My core objective in taking Journalist’s Toolkit is to better learn what separates the amateurs from the professionals.

I have a laundry list of practical and theoretical practices that I’d like to learn about collecting audio, photos and video. What I really want to walk away with is an understanding of how to produce professional, credible online news. Anyone with an Internet connection can put content out on the Internet. But that doesn’t make it professional journalism.

The first reason for wanting to understand this line in the sand is practical. I want to work in the field one day.

Another reason I would like to understand this line better is more personal. The process of collecting news to present in a blog has always felt shy of journalism to me, even though I do it myself on a regular basis.

For the last year or so, I’ve been keeping a hyperlocal blog on the municipal government in McIntosh, Florida called the McIntosh Mirror. I started the blog when there was great deal of angst in the community because residents didn’t understand what was going on with the town council. I used a blog as my venue for the sole reason that it was cheap, free and easy.

A year later, there is still a great deal of angst in the community. I’m not sure residents understand their town government any better. Readers in the comment sections can be vicious to each other and to me. What started out for me as a method of giving people a voice has had some unexpected results. A year ago, residents were turning up in record numbers to vote. This year, the town has had a hard time getting people to run for public offices in town. Some blame the blog. For these reasons, I spend a lot of time thinking about what my role as a community journalist is and should be.

The McIntosh Mirror has been an incredible learning experience, but the blog itself was not something I’ve kept up as part of an academic project. For that reason, it’s something that I am very alone in doing. I rarely get to talk about the McIntosh blog with other people who study online media academically.

Blogging is intensely connected to community and that’s one thing I’d like from this class blog. I would like to build a community of other people like myself who have an academic and professional interest. I’d like to post about some of the issues that come up with the McIntosh blog.

Finally, I’m hoping to finally produce decent photos. I’ve taken two photojournalism classes as an undergrad. I never could get film to perform for me. I need to be able to make more mistakes and see them as I go along than film allows. I just bought a new camera, and I’m hoping to jump that hurdle this semester.