The balance of reporting is still conducted by newspapers, but it appears the newspaper industry is on its way out. What impact will this have on the field of professional jounalism in the future? Can we look forward this century to a reliance on bloggers and/or other partisan 'reporters' for our news?
Print newspapers are dying, but good journalism will stay around, but will be distributed online instead. The venerable newspaper names we all know will persist and maintain their journalistic quality/standards.
I'm sorry. Is my bias showing?
I have little hope for "good" journalism. It just doesn't sell well anymore. Facts and newsworthy events just don't win out over breaking news (whether it is real or not).
I foresee very little success for news agencies that only deal in real fact based news. Fox News isn't going to get smaller anytime soon. And with the internet everything is rumors and uncredited sources.
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. -Douglas Adams
The biggest issue here is who will do the actual reporting. Organizations like the AP or Reuters are unbiased because they get paid by the wide-range of companies (mostly newspapers) who use their services. If a newspaper goes out of business they stop paying the AP. I think gradually we will see an even greater shift towards companies having their own (biased) reporters on scene and detail the event from the perspective of who is paying them. Instead of Fox, CNN, and MSNBC sharing (through the AP) hard news information, each will pay their own reporter. If this happens, where will internet sites like Yahoo! and Google News get their information from?
Ideally there would be a news channel free from any opinion shows, kind of like C-Span or something but far more interesting.
I burned down the church to atone for my transgressions.
My sister is an expert on this (print journalism only). She has bachelors and graduate degrees in journalism and currently works for the Chicago Tribune. She helped start ChicagoNow, which my dad also contributes as a city history blogger, but has since moved on to another division within the company. She also teaches a journalism class at DePaul University in Chicago and is seriously considering a gradaute degree in Social Media from Northwestern.Originally posted by Maister
Blogging, tweeting, etc. IS the new journalism. Personally, I don't consider them legitimate forms of journalism since its writers are not bound by any ethics or honor system that regulates libel and slander. She has discovered the key to her survival is adapting to new trends in media, although she has spent the greater part of the past 5 years dealing with IT, web design, public relations/marketing, advertising, and direct sales than actually writing. In some ways her struggle to stay abreast in journalism has some parallels with my struggles to stay active in planning.
"This is great, honey. What's the crunchy stuff?"
"M&Ms. I ran out of paprika."
Family Guy
I agree. When I did journalism is HS and college, you were taught ethics, and the inverted pyramid style of writing. It's going to up to the individual to decide what is true, what is spin and what is flat out bs. The end result is an even less informed public that will be easly manipulated. This also can lead into a discussion about subjective vs objective reality, but I won't go there.
When did I go from Luke Skywalker to Obi-Wan Kenobi?
I just wish that today's newsguys would stop talking *at* us and go back to talking *to* us. This 'in your face' style of writing that I'm seeing more and more often (especially from the left) is what I feel is most responsible for the breathtaking decline of the (formerly) 'mainstream' news sources such as the 'iconic' newspapers and magazines, the TV networks, etc.
Why did Fox News blow EVERYONE out of the water in ratings with their election night coverage last week? It wasn't even close.
Mike
Because the American public, as a whole, is ignorant.
"I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany"
That's not true. There is one conservative news station and 5 liberal ones. 25 million conservatives = 25 for Fox. 25 million liberals = 5 million per station.
I burned down the church to atone for my transgressions.
I don't know. If blogging/tweeting/online sources replace newspapers, it would leave a LOT of people uninformed; the poor, the elderly, and others without computers and an internet connection. It would also make it much harder to find news; instead of having it delivered to you in one convenient package, you have to hunt it down from different sources; it reminds me of the move away from popular music with mass appeal to small indie bands that one has to seek out.
Also, newspapers are one of society's shared experiences. Shared experiences that once united most of us in one way or another are on the decline; network television (replaced by multitude of cable channels, Netflix, Hulu, etc), and radio (replaced by MP3 players, podcasts, Internet radio, Pandora, etc) come to mind.
While local print newspapers in the US have a liberal or conservative bias, it's not really evident outside of the editorial pages. Without the shared experiences of local newspapers, our society could become even more polarized. Liberals will get their national news from the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor and MSNBC; conservatives from Fox News, the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal.
I wonder how newspapers are faring in other developed English-speaking countries, where cities with more than one daily are still the norm.
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
Yeah, I don't think newspapers will go away. A lot will probably continue to go more and more online. Blogs will continue to be on the rise, but people are still going to want ethics and fairness in reporting. So, as blogs become more mainstream, I expect the ones that are considered to be credible as news sources will need to have as just as much legitimacy, accuracy, and ethics as the regular newspapers.
"Life's a journey, not a destination"
-Steven Tyler
I got the Chicago Tribune for awhile, but decided that I could just read it online for free. I like reading printed papers and all, but online is just more convenient not to mention its updated throughout the day.
Oddly, the suburban paper where I grew up, the Amherst Bee, is free for the print version, but to read the online version less than a month old you need to pay.
Off-topic:
The Amherst Bee has the most awesome police blotter.
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
Old thread, I know.
Last week, when we had our first public meeting to introduce the first draft of our new comprehensive plan to the public, the daily newspaper didn't even bother to send a reporter. Here's some of the more important stories they decided to write about instead:
* Mail boat celebrates 75th year
* Library announces community read
* City newsletter enters second month
That's a step away from "Mrs. Gertrude Behrendfuchtenschnieder of Oatville visited Mrs. Edna Ottovordemgentschenfelde in Sorghum Corners last Tuesday."
Meanwhile, the free alternative weekly sent a reporter, and they're planning on a long feature article in the coming weeks.
Growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer cell. -- Edward Abbey
It could be worse, Dan. The local Jamestown newspaper regularly fills its pages with slanted news stories, "local commentary" from national writers, and letters to the editors that promote the out-of-town publisher's right wing agenda. Favorite topics: gay marriage is a sin; the City Council Prez who is gay wants to turn Jamestown into Sodom and Gomorrah; the city is harassing real estate investors (ie, absentee landlords who own slumhousing); our society is going to hell in a hand basket because the evil government won't inculcate public school students with Christian religious principles; Muslims are evil; the coal industry is God's gift to America (the publisher is heavily invested in coal); etc.
Local news about weeds in Chautauqua Lake, the Prendergast Library's book sale or even the local police blotter is welcome respite from the constant barrage of politically inspired BS.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. -- John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961
Pikers! 138 years... with its own zip code!!!
http://www.jwwestcott.com/
We hope for better things; it will arise from the ashes - Fr Gabriel Richard 1805
Quote
