CNN’s Political Ticker: A Legitimate Form of Writing

“GOP to unveil campaign pledge after Labor Day.” This title is one that people would expect to find on any newspaper or news website, however this particular title is found on a website that is legitimate news, but at the simultaneously, commentary. This title is found on CNN’s Political Ticker; a website that posts short news stories and then average citizens comment and share their opinions on the particular story. Is this a legitimate form of writing? To answer this question one must define legitimate writing. In my eyes valid writing is any text that conveys an idea or opinion. If one takes this to be true, CNN’s Political Ticker is, indeed, a legitimate form of writing.
Before the invention of the Internet or cell phones writing and literature were easy to define, for writing was limited to novels, newspapers, magazines, and letters. Once computers and Internet became household items, however, the world of writing became much broader and more vague. The Internet is made up, almost entirely of words, one must be able to read and write to navigate the Internet; there are words everywhere, from the toolbar, to facebook posts, to CNN.com. So now the question becomes which of these compilations of words is considered a legitimate from of writing. Is a five-word post on a friend’s facebook wall legitimate? Or what about written commentary on an article? Legitimate writing can be considered any written work that conveys ideas, opinions, or commentary; therefore I believe that a majority of writing found on the Internet can be considered legitimate, including CNN.com’s Political Ticker.
There are, obviously, critics of this idea. Some people may argue that legitimate writing is only that which is well thought out, professionally edited, and written by a professional writer. This argument does have some legitimacy; in one article, concerning former Vice President Dick Cheney’s use of crude language, one commentator wrote, “hope its warm enough in hell for ya, Dick!” This sentence has many problems with it; the first word of the sentence isn’t capitalized, ‘ya’ is not a real word, and there is no apostrophe in between the ‘t’ and the ‘s’ in ‘its.’ However, this author is conveying an opinion, and there are comments on the very same entry that are well written as well as expressing ideas. “That is really no way for the VP (current or former) to speak to a Senator. That is too crude and unrefined, but that is Cheney and his worldview. I would have hoped that Cheney would have followed the rules about “unbecoming” language. It just shows me that he is uncreative when it comes to telling someone that they aren’t liked or welcomed.” This post, for example, is much more polished; the grammar and spelling is correct and the author carefully chose his or her words. While these two posts vary immensely, they both still convey ideas and opinions, making both posts legitimate writing.
In the article, Is Google Making us Stupid? The author, Nicholas Carr, argues that, “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.” I disagree with that statement; I believe that allowing people to read news articles on-line and then have them write their responses to them allows people to, not only think about and express their views, but makes it possible for many different opinions to be shared and acknowledged. This allows people to get many different sides of one particular story, not just the reporter’s take on it, therefore this argument, in my eyes, holds very little value.
Over the years writing has changed to such a degree that it is nearly impossible to define ‘legitimate writing,’ not only are more people putting ideas into words, but these ideas are becoming more concise and found not only on paper, but on the web. This form of communication, while perhaps not as eloquent as novels, is much more efficient, for anyone with access to a computer is privilege to this information, therefore I believe that blogs such as CNN’s Political Ticker are not only legitimate forms of writing, but effective ways of communication

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