From site to site, news flourishes. The reason a viewer returns to a given site is to follow up on more recent news. Whether it be sports, politics, or music, people viewing the web want to be informed. Journalism will see more talent in writing because of the web's growing news trend. Someone who reads the Journal Sentinel newspaper is nearly forced to read the same writers weekly. Normally, there will be at least one writer in a newspaper that a reader will grow to hate. The reader only has the option of turning the page, or getting a different paper. However, online journalism offers the viewer a larger spectrum of choice. With so many different news sources online, a reader is one click away from another competing site.
Online allows more availability to the reader. Click by click, the reader gets to choose whether or not a site is worthy or not. This trend will have writers on their toes. If writers know that readers can leave their article within seconds, it may cause them to write a little more sensible. Journalists will not be able to be as arrogant as they may be in a newspaper.
With millions of news outlets available on the web, readers can get what they want. Online writers will now work harder and produce better material in order to keep viewers interested. The demise of the newspaper may not be such a bad thing after all. What about jobs you ask? Once the trend continues to grow online, the news sources will be at a steady increase and jobs will continue to grow. More reporters and writers, means more jobs.
To elaborate on your stance that online writing will produce better writing, I feel that allowing readers to incorporate their opinions, ideas, and stances is the key to improving journalist's writing.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Art Silverblatt: "citizen journalists call attention to important information that is under-represented by the mainstream media, as well as putting this information into meaningful perspective" (Silverblatt 228). Although online journalism allows viewers a larger spectrum of choice as you noted, online journalism enables more people to provide various ideas and information that may or may not been covered or represented by the journalists. The journalists thus have the ability to connect to their readers by knowing how the readers feel about an issue and what other perspectives need to be addressed. By understanding what the readers think enables the journalists to have a more well-rounded approach to various ideas and perspectives.
According to the article "Social websites help to broadcast news" by Simon Canning, researched through EbscoHost: "NEWS organisations are increasingly experimenting with citizen journalism as websites such as Twitter allow members of the public to play an increasing role in the news-gathering process." As news transitions from print to media, more people in society will be contributing to how news corportations present news and to whom.