http://tinyurl.com/cm6ubk
Well we all know that newspapers are circling the drain...And the environmentalist in me is perfectly fine with that. Though the journalist wants to curl up in bed with my cats and cry for my mommy. It seems every page I stumble to has something on the decline of journalism and newspapers. There is always an article, interview, or rant, such as the ones on AngryJournalist.com. Although I must say when I read through many of the rants and responses to rants (which completely defeats the point of the website), many of these proposed journalists have very poor grammar skills. Maybe this is why the newspaper is on its way out?
The clear answer to the problem is that newspapers need to find a new way to make money. Not always that easy, but the fellows over at East Bay Express seem to have found the answer
I hope that the newspapers do not stoop down to that level, though it seems that we're running out of options. Selling marijuana, weekly raffles, prostitution rings and the like clearly will not put the newspapers back up on their former pedestal.
In all seriousness, I am not afraid of the decline of the newspaper. Even with the Times in the middle of their own personal hell, the people of this nation will want to know what is going on, and the news is how that happens. Though printed journalism is on its way out, online media is still running strong. It will be only a matter of time before the big companies start charging for online viewing. Is it really so scary for us to move forward into the technological era, when paper is on its way out? With tools like YouTube, Blogger, Twitter and other forms of online communication, I'm truly shocked that there is so much hype over the lost of the eco-unfriendly printed papers. We have always evolved to move forward with the times, so why not this time? After Henry Ford came out with the Model T, horse drawn carriages were very quickly a thing of the past. So let us put the printed paper to rest, and start reading online.
In response to your post, I do agree with the demise of newspapers not looking so bad for the environment. Seeing as trees are used for their paper, it’s no doubt that that aspect of loosing newspapers would be positive. Although, I don’t agree with rolling with the times and solely depending on the internet for news. The problem that I have with this is that how will we know the information were reading is credible or even accurate for that matter. Nowadays, citizen journalists exist all over the place because of access to the internet, citizen journalists being ordinary people like you and me. I won’t say that the information provided by these people isn’t accurate, but is it remotely close to objectivity?
ReplyDeleteEveryone knows that one of the main jobs of the journalist is to be objective. Although we have come to the realization that being completely objective is basically impossible, will the information on the internet be fair in any fashion? Earlier this semester, we read the “Citizens Bill of Rights”. Number one on the list is truthfulness. How could we be sure that these citizen journalist will be truthful? Without individuals being professional and employed by a paper, who’s going to make sure that the story their writing about is fair? I feel that newspapers provide a sense of security that the information delivered in newspapers is at a certain standard that the paper producing these stories stands by.
Second on the “Citizens Bill of Rights”, is proof that the journalists first loyalty is to citizens. This brings into question, how will citizens know if what their reading is true or not? Without newspapers I feel that our society will be easily corrupted. No one will know who to depend on to get the information in an accurate, fair manner. We could depend on news on TV, but a lot of these broadcast journalists don’t always get their information first at hand, they use newspapers and other sources to understand what’s going on. Who will be that “first hand” news if newspapers no longer exist?