Digital Journalism
Read of couple of interesting articles on the state of the newspapers.
In the first, author Mark Evans points out that journalists (and newspapers) really need to reinvent themselves.
It seems pretty obvious that the word “journalist” will soon — if it hasn’t already — mean something so much different from 10 or 20 years ago.
Gone are the days where a reporter sees something happening, rushes into the fray to the get the story, and “phones in” the “scoop”.
Today, he or she needs to know how to blog, twitter, podcast, videocast, etc. In fact, I feel the same with way myself. While my primary vocation is wedding photography, I happen to know illustration, web design, video and film editing.
Citizen Journalism?
As Evans mentions, the Internet has broke the Newspaper’s back:
- Twitter allows anyone with a mobile device to give an immediate play-by-play of what’s happening down a few houses from your pad.
- Blogs allows anyone to write more in-depth stories
- Distance becomes a moot point, as someone can focus on his or her own neck of the woods
In short, (almost) anyone can report, and they do.
But what about the Fundamental questions in Journalism?
- Who’s going to check on accuracy of the report? What if 2 people tweet something different than the other 83? There can easily be a “lemming” effect if the wrong information is tweeted.
- Which anonymous “reporter” are you going to believe in?
- What about objectivity? Critical thinking?
A Journalism Revolution Underway
In another article, author Clay Shirky likens today’s newspaper industry turmoil to the transition period in between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, pointing out Elizabeth Eisenstein’s look at what happened when Gutenburg introduced the printing press, and books and newspapers became the new way to spread information.
So it would seem that we are in our own midst of an information revolution.
Indeed, we have never been more deluged with information than we are today.
However, sifting through, sorting, verifying, and coming to depend on what information, and from who, is becoming more and more time consuming (or wasting?) task.
Perhaps this will become the realm of the “Neo”-newspapers?
