Learning As You Blog

"You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something."
-H.G. Wells

So...my name is Ryan Reeh (I hope I've met you in person if you managed to find your way here. If not, why haven't we met?) I'm finishing up my Northwestern degree in Journalism at the moment, but that doesn't mean I'm quite done with writing - I love telling stories (and am of the belief that you can make a story about A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G.)

However, I'm sort of new to blogging. I have done this kind of thing before, but very, very differently: the experience offered me an important lesson. I was the Online Editor for my school's newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, for two terms during my sophomore year. Being the peon that posted articles from the print edition onto a website for readers online, I came into the newsroom at midnight, often with a few poor souls working past late deadlines trying to get everything done in time for the next day's edition. With little fanfare (and often getting into the building the back way), I plopped down in front of a computer and started posting away.

But....I wasn't satisfied with just copying and pasting articles. Previous Online Editors were frustrated (as was I) with how little could be controlled from their position. You would think that at an Editor-level position, you would have some kind of ability to improve on the work of your predecessors and have some kind of level of control on content and/or how that content looked. Sadly friend, you'd be wrong. I was put into a broken content management system called College Publisher and asked to make the best of it. I was the only staff member of my department, which meant that the whole job of running a news operation's online division fell squarely on me. If I got sick, tired, or heaven forbid worse, there was no help. Kind of a difficult situation when you're on the cunning edge of "New Media."

So what did I do? Something different: I started creating original content, aka blogging. I had a weekly column, called "Pajama Perspectives" ,and managed to get a few new reporters to help post weekly content (because I went to work so late at night, no one cared what I looked like, so I often came in my pajamas). It was the birth of something new for the newspaper, but was it worth the trouble?

That wouldn't be for me to decide. I wrote away, with some critics (some of whom were colleagues of mine) simultaneously attacking me for not doing enough and yet praising me for my efforts. It was hard to get people to identify with the unique challenge of running a Newspaper's website by myself.

It was a confusing time, for sure, but it was an unusually rewarding experience. When I finally hung up my hat at the Daily Online, people were asking me what the website would be without me and fans (Egad! Fans?! For-a-once-a-week-barely-noticed-column?) wrote to me saying they would miss my PJ musings. In the end, The Daily's website didn't end up being very robust. My efforts lasted a few months, until the clamor for new content ended. For a time, they tried doing this neat thing with YouTube and columnists/reporters commenting about their pieces. Sadly, the videos are no longer there. To be fair, the Daily Online's overlord(s) are trying.

What did I learn from all of this? The Internet is fickle - at the same time that we embrace new technology and new techniques, we have a hard time accepting that these techs are changing the traditional ways in which knowledge is shared. Just look at newspapers: with less readers (and thus, less revenue) they have to change the way they present news to attract new readers...or suffer the fate of the dinosaurs. (By the way, I don't think newspapers are dead, but when I tell people I'm studying "Journalism...a dying art," they genuinely agree).

For now, I'm back on the saddle of blogging - I love writing too much to not muse about random things, current events, and life in general. I'll try to keep things pensive and reflective (feel free to knock me down a peg in the comments - it's still a free country) and maybe we will all learn a little.

-Ryan