A moment to shine

I gave a chat on blogs last night for a journalism class at a local community college. Awrighty, I’m not exactly Daily Kos or Andrew Sullivan, but I figured I’m as talented as anyone at navel gazing, keyboard diarrhea and taking up valuable bandwidth. What else is there to know?

I met the instructor through the company I interviewed at a few weeks ago; he was one of the people who wasn’t supposed to discover my blog but instantly forgave me (I gave the firm mixed reviews).

There were six students in the class, ranging from early twenties to mid-fifties, about half of whom actually aspire to a journalism career, poor souls. The instructor’s Columbia educated, like myself, and has them doing deadline drills and weekly assignments. Tough stuff if you’re expecting the usual pandering, dumbed-down snoozefest that many CC courses have become.

We talked about James Madison's vision of a free, robust press, about the hoaxes Ben Franklin played in his newspaper, and related it to the uncensored, Wild West nature of the blogosphere. Judging by their questions, they got it. Big time.

What they said they liked about my class: maybe they won’t all get actual reporting jobs afterward, but any one of them can start a blog today. I made sure to walk them through all the steps from getting set up to ass-kissing fellow bloggers for reciprocal links.

What this contributes to bettering the world, I dunno. But I felt good afterward.

Comments

[Anne-Marie]

Good for you! I've been thinking of teaching a blogging class at our new local "free university." Back in the days when I worked for a software company, I taught our customers how to use our customer-only website. So I figured it would be easy to do.

However, after explaining my blog to a zillion people, I'm not so sure that many people know what the heck a blog is in the first place. And those who do are already blogging.

[Gooch]

I linked you out of love for your writing - the reciprocal ass-kissing was just an added bonus.

:-)

[Faith]

I love all the reciprocal ass kissing. *smooch*

I always want to spread the word about blogging, but then I get desperately afraid someone I know (and purposefully haven't told) will discover mine.

[Andrea]

Keyboard Diarrhea is the best kind!

[Anne]

Anne-Marie: I guess I just got lucky, they knew what blogs were, at least in concept, but were fuzzy on who gets to blog and how.

Gooch: And I feel the same! Big, fat gooch smooch coming your way ;-)

Faith: What, you mean like Evil Ex? He sounds so clueless, you could probably tattoo your URL on his forehead, he still wouldn't get it.

Andrea: Get back to class! (Just looking out for my niece here).

[Ontario Emperor]

Another tip: be sure to explicitly mention "ass-kissing" in your blog. This can get you additional hits from certain Googlers... :)

[Andrea]

Class? It was 10:47 PM!!!