JOURNALISM, clearly, is changing. Newspaper circulation is down, sometimes on purpose. Broadcast outlets pander to audiences' raw emotions and magazines are dropping like flies.
The culprit, everyone seems to think, is the Internet.
The question is, can journalism survive the Internet? Can news that is necessary and important weed through the porn and crap that so thrives online? Is there a business model that will ensure quality journalism continues to be produced?
Is this even an issue? Or are the fears that society is becoming nothing more than a bunch of uneducated, bling-loving, Lindsay Lohan-obsessing morons inaccurate?
Does journalism really need to be rescued? Aren't we all getting the info we need despite the decaying of traditional journalism? Aren't the people freaking out about dying newspapers, the end of the network news era, and the end of objectivity just a bunch of dinosaurs?
7 comments:
Yes, journalism needs to be rescued.
First, the US PATRIOT Act needs to be done away with. It plays a large part in journalists not being able to give the public the full story.
Second, newspapers and news channels need to stop reporting on things that are not news. Drunk Britney and coked-out Lindsay may make the public feel slightly better about their lives, but it is not important for us to know these things. Leave that gossip for Perez.
I honestly believe that someday in the near future, newspapers will be alive again. They're more convenient than reading the news on a computer, that's for sure.
In my New Media class we talked about McLuhan's 4 principles of technology and there is nothing that fits the principles quite like journalism.
With all time low trust in the media (something that I definitely attribute to the casual relationship to factual evidence and cavalier approaches to journalism found on the web...which creates this paradox that I will attempt to explain...a;djger!) people are most certainly looking for other means of informations--mostly online websites, blogs, etc.
The Principles:
1) it enhances something: online journalism enhances traditional journalism in that it provides a broader spectrum of perspectives and understanding
2) it renders something obsolete: the transformation of paper to online journalism quite obviously obsolesces the newspaper
3) it retreicves long lost methods/ideals: online journalism has revitalized this revolutionary American spirit--it has given birth to a immense phenomena: people asking WHY! (think treason and secret conferences where secret documents were created under England's nose!)
4) it eventually collapses into its opposite: online journalism was first created in a way to monitor the power houses of media...the big shots, the big media people. The little people took control to make media honest and back to the grassroots... but as we've found out, online media has become the opposite of its original goal, it is now, quite frankly, the reason media has become dishonest.
Joe Shmoe in Nevada can now publish at a whim with no concept of consequences and the public will not even bat an eye.
New Media is an incredibly exciting thing. I got into journalism simply because I felt that I had to. In terms of Beethoven, journalism to me is my "Es muss sein," or "it must be." I got into journalism to change it, to revolutionize its thinking and hopefully to change some of the injustice I saw and New Media was supposed to provide me with that forum. New Media promises absolute freedom of expression because there is no possibility of regulation. But that is what confines New Media. The absolute freedom, which is now common knowledge, stops people from believing it.
I will say though that causes and global efforts are one of the things that benefit from the Internet. Internet is ungodly powerful because it liberates the audience from the perspective of a passive observer. The sites are interactive and personal. Very personal.
I stumbled upon a website, Invisible Children (http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php), and the next thing I knew, I was sleeping as a form of protest outside in the streets of Philly with just my sleeping bag, and then I was on Amtrack with a tent, commuting to DC and New York to protest some more, and the reason being was that through interactive media I was able to really meet these children of Uganda who are being abducted every night. There are some things a newspaper just cannot do.
However I disagree with McLuhan in that I don't think the traditional newspaper will ever go away. There is something just so gratifying about actually holding a newspaper. I think convergence media is the future, not JUST new media and online media.
Siemens, a huuuggggee technology and science firm recently (last yearish) produce the worls'd first PAPER THIN television monitor. Not just flatscreen, actually paper thing. A TV that had the ability to bend like paper and they believed that it would revolutionize advertising and magazines. Then you get to hold the magazine and interact with it.
That would be neat.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/images/Siemens_display.jpg
(the paper thin TV, if you're curious... i did a piece on it in high school.) and sorry my last comment was so long
I don't think newspapers need to be saved. Their demand will continue to drop, but it will do so until it reaches a constant, unchanging demand, like books. As much as you can get texts and novels and notes online, nothing compares to a book, and a website cannot do what a newspaper does.
For just 50 cents, you can carry around this information that is already compiled for you rather than searching for everything online in bits and pieces. You can find things to do in the city, jobs, etc; and use the coupons in it, and save the cool color photos they print (I like to.) When you're done with it, you can pass it onto someone else who hasn't read it yet. It's such a simple concept, but as much as the newspaper revenue dips, I don't think people will ever let it be done away with completely.
Print Journalism needs to be rescued because I want a job when I graduate.
The internet is obviously just more convenient. And it is also free! You have to pay for the NY Times to be delivered to your home every morning, so why not just jump online and get your "news" quickly and for free? I'm all about free stuff, but what's on the internet isn't always something to be trusted, I mean even less than what is printed in the NY Times because anyone can create a blog. I had a blog when I was 13.
Newspapers are a pain in the ass. I was just in class trying to read the Temple News and the thing is so big, it just annoys me. But papers like Phila. Weekly and Citypaper that are more like magazines are much more comfortable to sit down and read when you're on the train.
I see plenty of people reading The Metro on the bus or train.. and I'm guessing because it's free and it's there. Newspapers need to be made easier to just pick up and read.. free, smaller. Yeah..
"Print Journalism needs to be rescued because I want a job when I graduate. "
Hahaha. That was so cute.
Crystal is right though. First off, the paper is HUGE. Have you ever tried reading The Washington Post (I'm from D.C....sorry) or even the New York times? You can't open it because it takes up like 39 square feet and for some reason, it's the LOUDEST thing to open and fold and turn over. And you can never close it the way you want it...the insides are falling out or you're folding it some weird way, and it just doesn't look as nice and compact as it did before you came along and ruined it...newspaper monsters.
The internet is just more convinient. When I go online, I can quickly check out the main stories. If I CHOOSE to read more on a subject, I can click a link. If not, I still know basically what went on and can move on. Newspapers are a hassle. They are way too big and you never finish it and they end up in some big pile in your living room floor. And there's a NEW newspaper every day!! You can't even save a newspaper to "read it later" becuase by the time "later" comes along, your news is old and stupid and doesn't matter anymore.
Reading the news online just makes sense. Maybe newspaper will have a chance if they do become smaller and thinner and more...flippable? Not a word, but you know what I mean. Like a magazine.
I didn't know magazines were "dropping like flies" though. I still read Cosmo and Allure and Vogue. They write about real issues and include pictures of cute bags and purses too! Whooo hooo!
I admit, I use to be a big Pink is the New Blog fan too. Then...I stopped caring. Lindsay and Britney are pulling in the millions...not me. Until they start paying for my tuition, I don't want to know who's in love/in jail/in rehab/given up wearing undies.
Heck you can't wrap up your garbage, catch paint splatter, recycle, or line a bird cage with a flat screen monitor (but you can DELETE, just not often enough)! In industrial publications, print is all but gone as well due to the high cost of paper and 4-color; New Equipment Digest and Modern Material Handling, staples of business are down to about 6 pages (at one time were 50-ish) and buyers are assaulted with electronic digests. As consumers are overwhelmed with the avalanche of questionable electronic b.s., they will revert to trusted sources and the pendulum (at least for consumer publications) will start to swing back and stabilize. Remember, too, the number of impressions (as a paper is shared by multiple readers) determines the quality and efficiency of the ad.
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