The Future of Journalism
As someone involved in blogging and vlogging, I find it interesting to see how quickly/slowly this reporting format is being established by the mainstream media. A couple of weeks ago I was explaining to a friend of mine in the Graduate School of Journalism at Carlton University in Ottawa, Canada, about the importance of establishing a network of Internet-based media. My friend had started a blog a few months ago, but stopped blogging after her parents disapproved of the activity. Perhaps personal blogging is too intimate for their taste, but what if she started a media blog?
When visiting BuzzMachine this afternoon, I came across a post discussing the evolution of journalism. Apparently, the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY) has changed the term “new media” to “interactive journalism”.
Why is this of interest? Instead of dividing new media from traditional media, the school recognizes the importance of amalgamating them in order for the mainstream media to stay afloat. As computer-challenged baby-boomers start to die off, who will care about print journalism anymore?
Although blogs and vlogs are becoming more and more popular, the truth is that we need the mainstream media. Without someone being paid to do research and write “authentic” articles, what material would bloggers have to blog on? As one of my readers commented a few weeks ago, most blogs are aimed against President Bush and his back door policies. Without the mainstream media leading the way to write flawed and biased stories, where would we get our content?
Just as in society, the key to success is networking. Align yourself with others and you have a higher chance of getting noticed. Take my blog, for example. Before Kitkast first aired, I was lucky to have 12 readers. But now that Kitkast viewers are at about 3000 regular viewers, readership of my blog has gone up to around 130.
In other words, giving people more reasons to visit your site is what makes it a success. This is why it’s important for the mainstream media to adapt to the new media to form what is now called “interactive journalism”. By having the big guys at MSNBC and the Washington Times announcing their new blogs, more people are curious to check out the site and to follow their ramblings. Evolution is truly what drives traffic and shoots ratings sky high.
December 14th, 2005 at 4:29 pm
I think the problem that mainstream blogs will run into is how to continue a media empire for content that is currently considered free. Even the most popular political bloggers that exist [on their side of the aisle] offer their content for free. [Even if you have to sit through Salon.com’s annoying flash ads for 5 seconds.]
How the mainstream media will deal with phasing out advertising profits from newspapers and transform that revenue into online advertising profits has yet to be seen. Bandwidth is expensive and its hard to earn a living off google ads.
While I agree that the main stream media needs to exist in some form to do true investigative reporting I think to a degree that this function can also be adsorbed by “professional” bloggers.
John @ Americablog.com broke a story about US soldiers trading Iraqi death photos for free access to amateur porn due to a readers tip and a little digging around. It was bloggers that pushed into Jeff Gannon/Guckert’s credentials that pushed his obvious stooge-hood into the MSM.
I think bloggers [or at least those not bound by obligations to foreign dignitaries] are ready and willing to step up into a more investigative role if needed.
December 15th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for writing this. It might seem like pointing out the obvious- but to a lot of people it isn’t all that obvious. Unfortunately I don’t know if those people are reading your blog…
I think that different people enjoy different balances of news/commentary, and in different formats (some people will always be text or audio junkies, for example). The dominance of one form doesn’t necessarily mean the extinction of another. And free doesn’t mean worthless- while networking doesn’t pay the bills I think it’s becoming harder to ignore the necessity.
“In other words, giving people more reasons to visit your site is what makes it a success.” YES. Thank you.