Briggs Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of Mark Briggs’ “Journalism Next” textbook focuses on the fundamentals of computers and the internet that is required to be a successful journalist.

Briggs made it clear that the internet and the World Wide Web are two different things.  He claims that the internet is the network of unified computers worldwide, while the World Wide Web is used to access information.

RSS feeds are a feature of a web site, or a separate program.  RSS, ironically, stands for Really Simple Syndication.  Briggs says that the best types of websites to choose for an RSS feed include news, company or blog websites that are of interest to the reader.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a way to transfer large files that are too big for email, such as audio and video files.  Briggs says that emails should not have attachments over 1 megabyte in size.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) help web designers make their websites look better.  Designers can change the look of a website, such as bulleted lists, without having to change the HTML of the page.

Briggs even included a mini crash-course on HTML coding in the chapter.  A simple website can be constructed by using codes such as <h1> for headline, <b> for bold and <ul> for underline.  However, don’t forget to include the matching closing code, such as </ul> for underline, when you are done.  These end codes tell the web browser where the specific design element ends.

Journalists are expected to know how to edit websites and not rely on website personnel to fix something.  This is extremely important given the recent influx of media presence online in places such as Twitter and Facebook where immediacy is required for accurate news reporting.  This chapter gives important advice that journalists need to achieve this new industry requirement.