Is the Internet Killing Journalism?

There has been a definite shift in all news media in past couple decades. Because of the way the internet is evolving and has evolved, written news media and television news seems to be dying out. Not only are these different types of media dying out, but also the professionals involved are losing their jobs and their professions as a whole are dying out. This all caused by so called “citizen journalists”, seemingly making the internet out to be a “bad guy”. But is it really? Or is the internet just revolutionizing media? Internet the way we see it today is definitely revolutionizing the world of news media.

In the past the way we used to get our news was through morning papers and/or through television. Even though the news might be same no matter what paper you read or channel you watch you still only get one news media outlet’s story. Now if you wanted more opinions or a different telling of the story you would either have to subscribe to more papers or order more news channels. What is revolutionary about the internet is that you have it all with just one click of your mouse. Video, text, pictures it is all available right on your computer screen. Not only do you have that but also you can easily go from one telling of the story to the next, by just clicking on a different site. This definitely puts any written or televised news to shame.

With the internet as well you get outside sources to tell the story other than just the huge news corporations. “Citizen Journalists” and other amateur writers who may have caught a different side of a particular story share it through blogs, social networks etcetera. This is a completely new way to get news and in this way we can read or hear about things that aren’t greatly emphasized by the big news corporations. A great example of this is in Clay Shirky’s book, Everyone is a Media Outlet. Senator Trent Lott holds a speech at former senator and presidential candidate Storm Thurman’s birthday celebration. Lott says, “When Strom Thurman ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country would have followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.” Because the major news corporations didn’t feel like this was an important enough event to cover, they did not think it was important to report anything from the event. What was said in this speech though was leaked over the internet through blogs, and this ended up being pretty catastrophic for Lott.

With this type of news sharing there is a lot of doubt as to if the stuff we read can be accurate or not. It is, as Clay Shirky describes it, “mass amateurization” instead of professional journalism. Is this really a bad thing though? Even though professional journalists are checked and edited on what they write and say, it is still edited upon the opinions of the corporation. This may not always be accurate as well. The only difference between a “citizen journalist” and a professional journalist is education. This does not mean that people who tell us about a certain event, which do not have an education, are inaccurate.

Internet, “Mass amateurization”, and “citizen journalists” are what is revolutionizing the world of news media and will continue to do so for many years to come. Just like there was a shift from news media being delivered only through written newspapers and magazines to being able to get it on television, there is now a shift of all the above to the internet. Will the internet kill the profession of journalism? I do not believe so, instead it will broaden the profession to make it more global and intelligent