"Journalism Next" Chapter 9

Chapter 9 of Journalism Next covers the crucial topic of information overload.

Few other causes of anxiety are more germane to the digital age; with Facebook and Twitter providing us endless insight into the mundane inanities of everyone's lives, with YouTube and Flickr and Tumblr broadcasting endless images our way, and with a formidable array of unfiltered blogs proliferating in the vast data pool that is the Internet, it's easy to get lost.

Briggs offers several important tips for turning the tidal wave of information we all face into a manageable stream:

• Organize your e-mail: Any reporter (or college student) is bound to have an e-mail inbox filled to bursting with Facebook notifications, personal messages, academic deadlines, potential leads--at least in the case of the reporters--and, naturally, spam. Going through your e-mail on a regular basis can help reduce the buildup, and not every e-mail needs to be read in full. Many e-mail services (including MasonLive, the official e-mail provider for George Mason, now provide categorizing features. 
• Utilize productivity tools: Google calendar has saved a thousand thesis papers. In the online maze there are also plenty of tools to help you stay organized and sane. RSS feeds can filter your news intake, while e-mail alerts can remind you when an important deadline is on the way. 

It's also important to discriminate in your selection of data sources.  The local blogger who lives one street down may be a good source for developments involving the community watch system, but the reality, a reality often lost in the sea of the Internet, is that not everyone is qualified to speak on every topic.

Remember: numbers don't lie. Statistics are a sure way to enhance a hard news story. Without objective data, everything is in a sense anecdotal.