Broadcast Journalism is Transforming but not Dying Essay

In an era of global technology, instant news, infomercials, electronic town meetings, and “Made for TV Documentaries,” the borderlines between news and analysis, news and entertainment, news and fiction are constantly shifting.

Bob Edwards’ Edward Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism is a short biography about the man that established and revolutionized broadcast journalism. Bob Edwards has ample experience in broadcast journalism as a radio news and talk show host for over 30 years (Biography.com). It is no surprise that Edwards takes a particular interest in writing about Edward Murrow since he certainly influenced Edwards’ career in radio news. While he conducted most of his research through secondary sources, he relied heavily on books by close co-workers of Murrow. With that said, Edward Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism is a great streamlined tale of Murrow’s journey from a logger, to an education advocate, to broadcast journalism.

Clay Shirky who wrote Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (1993) argues that society doesn’t need newspapers society needs journalism to save society. Shirky supports this argument by giving a historical background to the problems newspapers face and how the problems have developed over time and the solutions society has came up with. The blogger concludes that in order for journalism to go farther new models must be created in place of past molds. Shirky directs this blog toward the current and future generations in attempt to motivate new models and methods of journalism.

In his essay “But Enough about You” Brian Williams addresses a very interesting issue about the user- generated media and the Mainstream media in today's society. He believes that the ideal American culture has changed because people are only concerned about themselves. Nowadays people are more interested to watch news if the implied message involves them or if it's good enough to tell someone else. Williams explains how all the new devices, the web, video and the digital cable fill a perceived people need. Therefore, many people are not interesting in reading newspaper or watching news in which it leads the Media to lose viewers. He emphasizes that the audiences that follows the news report are dropped, but the media still work hard to gathering

Journalism, like many other industries, is going through significant changes because of technology. This is why conventions like NASH 79 are important for young journalists to attend in order to gain a stronger understanding of integrating these changes in their work. Below I have outlined my potential learning outcomes and reasons for wanting to attend the NASH 79 conference.

The internet is our modern source for news media; the importance of the newspaper has not only declined, it is in a sense, obsolete. We now turn to the internet for opinions, news, and entertainment. Even though the way in which we consume information (PBS) has changed, the importance of an unrestricted and watchful media has not changed. (Magleby, Light, & Nemacheck, 2010)

The history of journalism in the United States has spanned from the first colonist crossing the Atlantic Ocean to today’s mass media. Even before we were a country we had printers and journalists writing and printing stories for the people. Looking back, we can divide journalism history into different time periods and see how news reporting developed over time. Some of these time periods include the Colonial Period which spanned from when the first Pilgrims came to America in the mid 1600’s till the 1760’s. Other periods include the Revolution period which picked up from the colonial period till the early 1780’s. The period of Westward Expansion lasted from the 1800 to the 1830’s, then there was the Civil War Period which spanned from the 1840’s till the 1860’s. Finally, the Interpretative Period which lasted from 1930’s and continues to today. Looking back at these time periods we can see what was considered “news” and what was “newsworthy”, the dominate issues of the periods, and how far we have come as a society from those issues.

According to Brian Williams, news anchor for NBC Nightly News and author of “Enough About You,” Americans have become oblivious to events and news going on that they aren’t particularly interested in, and social media only adds fuel to the fire. Even though the news is still concurrently viewed by millions of people, it’s nothing like it used to be. Regardless of the decline in viewers, Williams states that “we work every bit as hard as our television-news forebears did at gathering, writing and presenting the days news to a smaller audience” (473). Social media is integral part of everyday life that will not vanish for quite some time. While social media has its upsides, I feel that the downfalls are far

After researching the issue and the future of the journalism field it becomes apparent that, as privately owned businesses, most publications have the primary goal of making a profit, and subsequently produce the content that people desire to achieve this goal. With the exception of government-owned publications like the ABC, news outlets have no ethical responsibility to produce the hard news content that the audience ‘need’ to know, as they are businesses with an objective of producing a profitable source of entertainment for their specific target audience. Despite the different media diets of each individual consumer, media executives have the technology to understand and therefore satisfy the desires of their target audience. Thus concluding that while publications may not satisfy the supposed needs of their readers, they are able to recognize what they want to consume and produce this to retain their following and therefore achieve their primary goal of making a

This research has been conducted due to the fact that some researchers have claimed that “journalism is dying” whilst others have argued that “journalism is not dying but is simply evolving” (Blatchford: 2014). This has been a much contested debate triggered by the decline of news circulation from traditional news sources i.e. newspapers, television and radio together with the technological advances of the internet and social media (Cub Reporters: 2010). This has raised many questions and firstly, this dissertation will assess whether the rise of social media has led to the decline of news circulation from traditional news sources. Secondly, this paper will look at what the advantages and disadvantages of using social media as a news distributor are for professional journalists and the general public. Lastly, this study aims to investigate

The media and the public have had a relationship that has existed for centuries. Through the media, people become aware of events and issues occurring around them. As a result, they make educated decisions. Therefore, the media serve as witnesses of the events happening within our societies and then report them to us. That said, could journalism have a significant political impact in our societies? It is through the media that governments and their citizens communicate. For instance, people communicate by protesting and voting, governments respond by amending the issues affecting the public. It is also through the media that potential political leaders gain recognition. Therefore, the answer is yes, because, journalism causes the spread

In a contemporary society, the role of journalism is a varied one that covers many different aspects of people’s lives. As more and more outlets spring up around the world, many more stories are able to be covered by different outlets, and this means that journalism takes on a more and more important role in a contemporary society. Much of our lives centre on political and social happenings, and journalistic outlets are the public’s way of finding all the information on these event. Journalism also provides us with a way of finding out which of these stories are important and deserve our attention, and which stories can be ignored. The important role of journalism can be well observed in the recent coverage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in both New Zealand and around the world. This is a ground breaking economic deal, and holds a great deal of importance for the 800 million citizens of the countries involved, as well as the rest of the world. With worldwide coverage of this deal, it is inevitable that different types of reporting occurs, and that different outlets will provide different accounts. With so many different journalism outlets around the world and locally, many have to have a way of standing out from the crowd. This means that some extremely different coverage of very similar stories can occur. However it can also simply be down to different ownership, differing political views, and different socio-economic environments. Two outlets with

Both traditional and new media provide information, news and messages to inform us happenings around the world (UK Essays, 2013). Regardless of if it is the newspaper, magazine or Facebook, e-magazine, all types of media are able to relay information and entertainment.

The belief that journalism is in decline has triggered major alarms, because society needs an informational environment that is easily available to all citizens such as newspapers. There is a large body of journalist that suggests that if television has taken over from the press as our main source of news this may limit our capacity to learn about public affairs; newspapers are believed to be far more effective than television at conveying detailed information necessary to understand complex and detailed issues. There is also widespread concern that if journalism fails as a profession it will not be able to reach large sections of the community, particularly younger or less educated readers. This may reinforce a growing gap among citizens between the information that they receive.

To wholly have a grasp on how this new founded approach to journalism has changed alongside technology—as well as understanding the dangers such openness brings forth—one has to understand what exactly those changes are. Primarily, those that are writing for the sake of offering information have, whether willingly or not, fed into the usage of social media as it has become a centralized method of distribution that is relatively inescapable with the current times. As such those framing the news for the masses find an authentic avenue to stay in contact via social media that has benefits ranging from, “its extraordinary newsgathering potential; its potential as a new tool to engage the audience; and as a way of distributing our news” (Eltringham, 2012), all of which are deeply different from the presentation of reporting that occurred during earlier eras. Days of strongly structured instances of journalism that could not travel with such speed have been replaced as, “social media has trashed many of the foundations on