There are two camps with regards to whether the internet is improving journalism or whether it has killed journalism. Let me present these two views and how they came to the conclusion.
Internet has killed traditional journalism
Internet is killing journalists, or at least news organizations like newspapers and television news shows that no longer provide the same value to their customers.There are even websites like Newspaper Death Watch and a Google Maps project that tracks job layoffs at newspapers across the United States. November marks seven consecutive quarters of declining advertising revenue for U.S. newspapers.
Journalism started dying when people stopped looking to newspapers and television for news. It is as simple as that. Mindy McAdams, the current Knight Chair for Journalism, recalls that in 1995 people turned to television for coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, but by 2001 public demand crashed CNN’s online servers in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.
The Internet has slowly, but surely taken over the role of “see it here first” journalism. Even 24-hour news stations like CNN, MSNBC and FOX News do not have the ability to show news as it happens anywhere in the world. The Internet does. For example, The Virginia Tech shootings, the 2004 Indonesia Tsunami and the bombings in Mumbai, India were all shown online before television. Printed newspapers don’t even have a chance. "In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, nearly two-thirds say the Internet is hurting journalism more than it is helping. The poll, conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal, asked 43 media insiders whether, on balance, journalism has been helped more or hurt more by the rise of news consumption online. Sixty-five percent said journalism has been hurt more, while 34 percent said it has been helped more."
“The Internet has some plusses: It has widened the circle of those participating in the national debate. But it has mortally wounded the financial structure of the news business so that the cost of doing challenging, independent reporting has become all but prohibitive all over the world. It has blurred the line between opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled.”
The Internet is shaping journalism
The ability to interact instantaneously with people from all over the world in both print and on video is the strength of the internet. "Journalism will do more than survive the Internet Age, it will thrive. It will thrive as creators and publishers embrace the collaborative power of new technologies, retool production and distribution strategies and we stop trying to do everything ourselves."
It has been found that for ever half the firms questioned there was a fall in advertising income of more than 10%. However, it has also been found that many do not regard the internet as the future of journalism. "32% of the journalists think that the publication, or TV/radio channel they work for might disappear from the market, while fewer than 10% reckon that their publication, radio or TV channel will survive online."
With the presence of Internet, new forms of distribution such as Twitter and Facebook are widely accepted and increasingly used, and the internet is obviously still not a medium for which journalists create specific content. Just 43% of them say that at least half their online content is originally created for the web. From the European Digital Journalism Survey, more than 66% was found to have no kind of training at all in producing journalism for the new medium. No wonder that within most publications the interaction with user-generated content can be still regarded as passive: 68% accept comments on stories online and only 23% quote bloggers. User-generated content is widely neglected.
Although it is currently not accepted as a medium for actual journalism as of yet, this will probably shift and move as seen from the fact that the internet allows the transmission of information and news in a more real-time manner, quicker and more efficient. Basically, with the internet, everyone can be a journalist!
Now that I have given you two sides of the coin, what do you think is the future of journalism with the presence of the internet?
Information from:
1) http://blogs.reuters.com/from-reuterscom/2009/12/11/how-will-journalism-survive-the-internet-age/
2) http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/media-insiders-say-internet-hurts-journalism/7410/
3) http://newspaper-journalism.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_the_internet_killed_traditional_journalism
4) http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/sep/17/digital-media-future-of-journalism
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