Years back, you could hear the calling of “Extra, Extra!” from the street corners, then came the thump on your doorstep in the morning, now you can get the news instantly at any time of the day with a few clicks of the mouse. This change in how people get their news has given way to the decline of printed newspapers.
In the early days, the paperboy sold the newspapers on the street. To get the news you had to go out and purchase it from the street corner. Then the newspaper began to be mass-produced and they introduced a paperboy delivery service. This brought the newspaper to your doorstep. Now with the internet, you can just connect and the world’s news is at your fingertips. Instead of having to wait for the delivery boy, now the news is in your house.
The newspaper industry is not too happy about this transition, but it has opened up many more doors in how we view the news and discuss it. Before the newspaper went online, you had to read the days paper and go out to discuss it with the locals at the diner to get different viewpoints and insights on a topic. Now with the internet you are able to read news stories from contrasting sites, such as the witty Daily Show and the serious CNN to get different sides of the story. Also with many online news stories there are places to have open discussions. This gives you a broader range of insight from people all over the world.
With all these ways to access the news, one really has to be informed. This has created a kind of democracy system with the news. Instead of one journalist writing the story, we now have multiple people commenting on a topic. It has become more of a community. This is better for the citizen that wants to be fully informed, but with the general public being able to write the news, we may run into the problem of being misinformed. It comes down to the individual being proactive and taking charge in being well informed citizens. “There is a strong ethic of objectivity in journalism,” says Potter. Some argue that since amateur writers write much of the news online, they may not have taken the same ethic oaths as journalists have.
It is no doubt that the newspaper will become a thing of the past just like the paperboy. I think we should look at this change as progress, but not to forget the ethics and morals that newspaper journalists wrote by. These ethics made journalists reliable, because if they were not, they would not have a job. Therefore, we must hold online writers up to these morals.
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I also agree with the fact that getting news from the internet and allowing peopel to state their thoughts and feelings supports a good democracy. This idea also goes with the writing of Silverblatt. Silverblatt shows the idea that whoever is reading the news meaning any American is the person who dictates what were going to talk about with that certain subject. This also supports democracy because, us as Americans can choose to write anything about anything. We can comment on things in a negative and positve way without being judged.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that anyone who reads the news from the internet could have a high chance of recieving the wrong inforation. We need to be carefull of what we read and take all things into consideration while reading it. Although websites like the newyorktimes.com and CNN.com are published and correct, all of the comments and other talk is just peoples' opinions. None of the information they give is proven right or edited.
The demise of the newspaper is going to be both a positve thing. However I do think that our news that comes out of newspapers and the news that comes out of the internet are two very different things. In my view I think that the newspaper is a better way to read about what is going on in the world, it is much easier for people to make there own opinions on things before they read all about other peoples opinion.
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-ny-times-editor-warns-on-unreliable-news-from-google-others/
Many people read news and politic blogs written by ordinary people besides stories on nytimes.com and USAtoday.com. Silverblatt warns that reporters (in this case bloggers) might be "surreptitiously trying to sway readers to their point of view." The writer may have conservative or liberal values and only be reporting one side of a story or their own opinion.
ReplyDeleteIt is always the possibility that news on blog may be incorrect. It's a good idea to read many different blogs post or news stories on the internet before coming to your own opinion. Reading diverse and different sources will will give a reader a more "objective" opinion.
The comments below a news article or blog is another interesting part of community journalism. Readers are allowed to express their opinions or leave a sarcastic comment for everyone to read. Some comments add more context or perspective to a news article while other comments are obnoxious and false. The reader in this democracy has to educate themselves are figure out what's trustworthy and what is not in this new era of news reporting.
I would definitely have to agree with what you're saying.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely have to agree with what you said about people being able to state their thoughts and feelings through the Internet therefore creating a good democracy. Silverblatt believes that the citizens talk about what they want to talk about when it comes to reporting news, or writing a news story. We decide what’s newsworthy. It does support democracy, because it shows how we as citizens can chose what to write about, and when to write it. This country is all about freedoms and through writing we have just that. We have the ability to state our opinions without fearing a negative outcome.
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure if the diminishing newspaper indefinitely can be considered a positive thing, because like I stated in my own post, there’s something about a newspaper that gives it value. A simple piece of paper with an article can be history and you can cherish that piece of paper for years to come. I also feel that diminishing the newspaper can be another way of saying goodbye to objective journalism. Paper print compared to Internet is completely different as far as objectivity goes. According to Stovell, to be objective means to stay neutral with what your reporting. It means that as a journalist, you should be able to write in a non-biased point of view. With the Internet, it seems that objectivity is missing. Also, with the newspaper, there is no such thing as on going debates at the end of each article, like there is with online articles
Reading information from the Internet can also lead you to being misinformed. For example, you could read an article written by a random writer, but the fact of the matter is that the information giving to you through that article has a fifty percent chance of being completely inaccurate. As readers, we should be careful with what we read and try to stay away from sites such as Blogs when it comes to gathering information. Perhaps the best way of getting your information if the Internet is your only source is to go in to newspaper sites like JSonline.com or Wallsreet.com to get the most accurate objective articles.
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