There is an article on the web called "The Odyssey Online is Ruining Modern Journalism" by Tyler Whitmore which can be found here http://www.universilife.com, I encourage anyone reading this to read Mr. Whitmore's article before continuing to get a picture of his ideas.

In Tyler Whitmore's article, he shares his thoughts on The Odyssey Online, which can all be summarized into his belief that it is "all about the shares". I would like to agree with his statement but disagree with his point and reason for writing this (well written) article. In this piece I will be discussing the main points in Mr. Whitmore's article while trying, to the best of my human ability, to not take his words out of context.

"These ludicrously titled “articles”, if I should even call them that, one may think is not indicative of the website as a whole, but tag teamed with their infamous Open Letter To articles, the vast majority of articles are like these. Either lists, compilations of images and GIFs from pop culture, or things that you read and think to yourself: Why didn’t they just text this to their mom/roommate/best friend rather than writing this open letter?"

In the third paragraph Tyler Whitmore makes the statement above, his point being that The Odyssey Online's content seems silly to him and not worthy of being called articles. Mr. Whitmore's personal writing is well formed and capturing, two qualities I admire in an author of any kind so to that I respect his opinion. However, I believe he misses the point that Odyssey makes in their mission statement, Odyssey produces idea centered articles. The first line on Odysseys' about page states, "Odyssey is a social discovery platform committed to democratizing content creation while personalizing discovery", no where in the description of what Odyssey claims to be says anything about the professional journalism light that Mr. Tyler Whitmore attempted to shine on the Odyssey's content. The "ludicrously titled "articles" are exactly the kind of content Odyssey looks to promote; on the about page it says "Odyssey is built to capture the ideas of many". Journalism is the professional writing intended to educate and inform the public on events happening in the now. Articles, according to Google, are "a piece of writing included with others in a newspaper, magazine, or other publication". Odyssey is exactly that, a publishing organization, as stated in the about page "Odyssey is the only platform that allows people to seamlessly see and engage with different viewpoints on topics of interest to them". Odyssey promotes ideas of all kinds because at the end of the day there is someone on the planet that enjoyed the content in that "ludicrously titled "article".

"The Odyssey has 10,000+ writers in 900+ communities, they also net 30+ million monthly views. That’s a staggering amount of views, but also a staggering amount of writers. How can they employ them all? Upon inspection I found another sad truth: they don’t...... That is a lot of profit for the people running this pyramid scheme. I can’t blame them, it is a genius idea."

Under the sub-section named Money, Tyler Whitmore, criticizes Odyssey for having a large number of students creating content compared to the amount of money made off of advertisements. His point seems to be that he finds it "staggering" that Odyssey does not pay the content creators by saying "How can they employ them all? Upon inspection I found another sad truth: they don’t". Sad truth, these words make an obvious statement that he believes this is wrong. However, in the next sub-section named It's Not Journalism, Mr. Whitmore makes the statement "the journalism industry shouldn’t be about the money. Becoming a journalist should be about the writing", not only does Whitmore contradict himself in this phrase, he again states that the Odyssey claims to be a journalism producing organization. It seems that Mr. Whitmore has not taken the time to realize that the students writing for Odyssey do so because they are passionate and have ideas they wish to share, both silly and serious.

"If you truly want to delve into journalism, I would recommend starting your own website and writing about what matters to you, or even joining your campuses newspaper.......The Odyssey is passing itself as a revolutionary news site. I think I am going to stick to CNN, Fox, and other credible news organizations, but nice try though."

Let me once again clear something up about Mr. Whitmore's point, Odyssey has never claimed to be a "revolutionary news site". Odyssey does claim to be a " a social discovery platform committed to democratizing content creation while personalizing discovery". Odyssey is about the ideas of its writers, our passions, and our thoughts. If the Odyssey writers claimed to be journalist, Mr. Tyler Whitmore's points would all be valid, unfortunately that is not the case.

"But nice try though."