Case Study 6

Especially after reading this story, I think Google Alerts has great potential to change how reporters and editors come up with story ideas. It literally does the search for them, and with the click of a mouse gives them much of the background and preliminary research needed. From the Jim Morrison story, the reporter was able to contact Morrison's father and the man who wrote the letter to Charlie Crist. I definitely want an account like this because I know it will help me sift through the gobs of information on the Internet. While the Internet is changing journalism into community effort, the amount of information generated is overwhelming. Thus, filters such as Google Alerts help in the process of learning and analyzing this information.