The New Era of Journalism

Journalism is a field that is constantly changing. I believe that as time goes on and technology improves, the field will continue to grow and change. From newspapers, to radio, to broadcast television, to the new age of social media, technology is constantly widening our views of how to consume news. Some may see this as a bad thing because the speed of social media may jeopardize accuracy, or perhaps because they may think the internet is filled with, dare I say, fake news, but I see social media as the best tool a journalist could possibly have.

Mobile devices make it possible for journalists to share information from anywhere.

Journalists can now share every step of getting a story with their audience. For example, through my internship this summer I helped cover an FBI home raid in my local area with NewsChannel 13 reporter, Emily Burkhard. Though Emily went live several times throughout the day to bring viewers updates on the story, she also took to social media to put out breaking news updates in real time. She didn’t just wait for the next newscast to share information, she brought viewers along with her, so they would know everything she knew. This is important even when your story isn’t breaking news because it breaks down the barrier between journalists and their audience and allows journalists to respond to what the viewers are saying in real time.

I think that the best thing social media is doing for journalism is changing the format of “news as a lecture” to “news as a conversation.” No longer is journalism just a stuffy man in a suit telling you what you should know, it’s an active conversation between viewers and reporters. The audience has a more active role in what they want to see. They can easily share story ideas, or comment on a story. Journalists should be taking advantage of this, taking time to respond to questions, letting the audience know them in a more informal way to create trust, reaching out to the community to ask what they think about certain things. Thinking of journalism as a conversation can help fight against a lot of the criticism the media is facing today. If you listen to your audience, tell stories they want to hear, and get them to trust you then maybe there will be less distrust and suspicion of media outlets. Good journalists don’t just talk, they also listen.