As we all know, especially in Detroit, the news market has changed and shifted to an online market as opposed to the physical market. Opening your door to find your morning newspaper doesn’t happen as much as it used, or doesn’t happen at all! The picture above is now a picutre of the past. Today, many of us see this (picture below)on a daily basis.
Go online and you have an entirely different situation, blogs. Thousands if not millions of blogs are ready for the reading with just a click of a button. These blogs have become the center of what his now called, “citizen journalism”. The power of news information does not exist in the hands of a couple key reporters at hot newspaper companies, the news information exists in the citizens that live it out in their daily lives and now these citizens are starting to write about it.
A hot spot of citizen journalism close to home is Ann Arbor, Michigan. After their over 170 year newspaper empire, the Ann Arbor news closed its doors on publishing last year. Although the collapse of such a strong empire is sad, the tech savvy Ann Arbor citizens are embracing the new possibilities of online newspapers. Annarbor.com and annarborchronicle.com have both embraced community involvement through local bloggers. The video below explains the opportunity that Ann Arbor has utilized in more detail.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/media/july-dec09/annarbornews_12-08.html
There exists an amount of controversy on the way news should be handled and if online news is truly the best option. There is no doubt that journalism is changing, the question is if it is for the better or the worse. The pages below outline the pros and cons of citizen journalism and online news.
The idea of the Long Tail is exemplified in the blogger community. The power of information exists in everyone’s hands that have the internet. With the traditional newspaper industry, you had about 3 options, 3 perspectives, and 3 understandings of what happened in your city or community. With blogs and online newspapers, there can be more targeted sites with specific news, and more opinions and inputs on general news. This creates an endless amount of options for the reader.
Obviously, using the internet as a tool for democracy was not something that delivered newspapers could do because it was not thier market. Now, online newspapers and blogs publish and report on hundreds of causes that need support and advocacy. There is some danger in that possibility, because it is easier for them to post facts that aren’t correct or information that is taken out of context. When you are fighting for democracy, you want to make sure you have all the accurate information.
Creative commons was also something that the traditional newspaper did not incorporate because it had no need to. People are beginning to use more creativity in their reporting. That creativity can be shared and/or protected by the discernment of the artist. Creative commons is the perfect tool for those who incorporate and encourage creativity in news and reporting.
In ten years I see the internet and journalism reaching a balance. There will be an unlimited amount of good, quality news. Journalists are now being trained in school on how to write for online newspapers or journals.
The ethics and approaches shift somewhat when it comes to online reporting and we will have journalist who are trained and who are experts in doing just that. With introductions of products like the iPad, online reading is going to become more pleasant and acceptable to the common person. Who knows, the pendulum may swing back and there could be thriving traditional newspapers out there. I believe a combination of both is what satisfies the American people, but time will tell. The websites below were referenced in the writing of this blog
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6806335.ece
http://www.journalism20.com/blog/2010/03/02/live-blogging-a-big-trial-journalism%e2%80%99s-equivalent-of-long-haul-trucking/#more-1012
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/gstorch/201002/1826/
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2416/2269064374_331de38c14.jpg http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/media/july-dec09/annarbornews_12-08.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/media-insiders-say-internet-hurts-journalism/7410/
http://blogs.reuters.com/from-reuterscom/2009/12/11/how-will-journalism-survive-the-internet-age/
photos made possible by Google Image Searh and Flickr through CC
I like how you mentioned about the Ann Arbor News and how they are embracing the change. There really is no alternative to that, because if companies do not comply with the new technology, their business will most likely become extinct. It is so important to keep up with technology, but I hope it never gets to the point where it goes too far!
ReplyDeleteYour right people will still want both online versions as well as paper versions of the paper. I prefer to read an actual paper. One thing that I said in my blog was that you have to worry about who is posting on the sites for the paper, that could easily be false information. Although I would hope that the information that I read on the internet is assumed to be accurate, you just never know. But there is less of a risk when you are reading an actual paper because I know that in order to have a column printed in the newspaper that journalists actually works for the paper. I hope that digital media does not completely take over.
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