Effortless subject. As I scoured the web for my first subject to critique (or, as it tends to be in my case, utterly destroy), I was smacked in the face by an obvious point of contention when attempting to go to boston.com. Bombarding the reader immediately is an ad announcing the opening of a new L.L. Bean store in Burlington. After several minutes, the page failed to load past the ad and I gave up on my attempts to read the news. This brings a new issue to the table in the consideration of journalism of the web - what happened to our ability to see news before ads?

In this modern world of pop-ups and spyware, it seems that internet media, whose appeal is in its convenience, is becoming more and more of a hassle. We already have to accept that we can't walk across a college campus or ride a subway without being bombarded by ads. How much are we willing to put up with to get the news? How much more muddled is the news going to be by the advertising that surrounds it? The business of journalism is closely linked to advertising - always has been. But it seems that journalism, rather than being the dominant in the relationship, is taking a backseat in the online realm.

This also connects into an interesting e-tidbit about ad overload on Poynter, Online Advertising Extravaganza in Norway, highlighting the loss of journalism and how far the advertisers are willing to go. It disappoints me to even see sites like Myspace - which, of course, is no real journalistic enterprise - covered in ads for movies and television. The journalism of the web may be increasingly more accessible, but only if we're willing to sift through ads and thousands of subliminal messages to get to it.

Or, in my case, wait 5 minutes for the L.L. Bean ad to disappear.  ¶ 1:50 PM