The purpose of this blog is to gain practical experience publishing to the Web. Not only will this allow me to grow as a journalist as the semester progresses, but it will allow me to monitor my progress as I develop my skills. I have spent a lot of time preparing for traditional media writing in other classes, but this blog should help me to gain experience in the growing world of online publication.

My journalism experience consists of all of the classes that I have taken at the University of Northern Colorado leading up the capstone class in journalism and mass communications. I have also completed a practicum/internship with the athletics media relations department.

I am covering the UNC baseball team as my assigned beat for the advanced news and feature writing class. I hope to learn about how to coordinate my actions and utilize what I have learned up to this point to produce well-written, publishable articles. I also hope that this class will help me to display my abilities for perspective employers. So far I have learned that covering a beat requires a lot of "foot work," or gathering a large amount of information from many sources to create an interesting news piece. This is the first time I have covered a beat, but because it is a sports beat I am confident that I will have no problems staying motivated and ready to learn.

My weaknesses as a journalist are that I have a small amount of practical experience outside of the classroom and that I have turned my focus more to the public relations realm of media communication. My strengths as a journalist reside mainly in the strength and clarity of my writing.

I have absolutely no blogging experience, but I am looking forward to learning how to use this tool as a professional and private user.

My feelings about blogging consist of some skepticism and some hopeful thinking. I am skeptical about blogging because I have seen a lot of blogs that are just average Joe's using the Web as a medium to spout their opinion about issues and topics while they have absolutely no practical or professional credibility to lend to what they are discussing. I am hopeful because blogging can be a powerful tool for media professionals and experts in various areas. My hope stems from my vision that someday, the majority of average Americans surfing the Web will be able to distinguish the difference between an educated professional, and a person who is simply using the Internet as a forum to complain about their lives, spout off about their favorite sports team, bash celebrities, or whatever else.