JRN 4440/FA16
Week Three
Assignment: Reading
Response
2013 American
Journalist in the Digital Age Key Findings
For years
now, there has been a growing trend of using social media as a communication
tool that connects the world and journalist are taking advantage of that. In
recent studies, U.S. journalists are known to turn to social media to connect
with readers and see what their competitor is up to. Well, I think a journalist
relying on social media is the double-edged sword to the idea of journalism and
could be helping a decline in traditional news organizations.
The first
reason I’m going to make is that newsrooms are shrinking for the good and bad.
Recently, downsizing in a newsroom has become a common occurrence because of
the economy. Everything seems to have become too expensive and news
organizations have to downgrade their staff. That does not go for just the
staff, but what the organization produces to the public. When reading a
newspaper, I feel like there is more ads then stories, but I know the
publication has their hands tied behind their backs. The good about downsizing
a newsroom is journalist have become capable of developing new techniques to
producing a story. Social media plays an important role in this because I feel the
world wants news that is fast and right at their fingertips.
My next
reason on if journalist using social media is hurting or helping is the
decrease of trying to get the information out to the public fast enough. The
journalism field is very competitive because of the growing number of companies
and organizations who want to be first in delivering news, especially if it’s
breaking news. When online news started to become popular, paper publications
had a whole new competition to worry about. The news organization have to
choose if they should give their readers quick news or news that takes time to
write. In my view about this situation, social media is helping the spread of
difference news, but I feel it is OK to slow down and produce really great
stories, no matter how long they take.
Another
issue that traditional news organizations have is really reaching the mass
audience. In the past, the readers were the main source of what was to be
covered. A journalist’s job was to be the messenger to the people, but at some
point, most people stopped listening. I think journalist using social media to
reach out to the audience has been successful. My Facebook feed has tons of
articles for different news sources every day and I don’t seeing that stopping
anytime soon.
Social
media is a tool a journalist uses now to branch out with interactive media. I
find that people have short attention spans and I think the writers of the journal
are right about the use of interactive media. I think videos or pictures make a
journalist job easy. A journalist can also create a blog to display their
writing skill or to help build their career.
The
internet opened up a whole new world to journalist, but social media allows
journalists to watch the competition and find out breaking news. I still like
the classics and grab a newspaper whenever I can, but the internet is a great
place to find the news.
There are
only certain things that a traditional newspaper can do, but social media can
do better. A traditional newspaper and news on social media have something in
common. Both communication tools inform the public of the latest news and allows
journalist to be inventive with delivering the news. The differences of the
two, when it comes to making a journalist job effective, is that social media
has caused newsrooms to shrink and there is a huge competitive field with
online publications.
Comments
Post a Comment