History is a repetition of events: war after war, economic crisis after economic crisis, technology outdoing itself as we speak. A line of events that for centuries have been reported by the world’s oldest storytellers: journalists. Yet, the future of journalism itself has never been as uncertain and unpredictable as it has been in the past decade and the role of ‘gatekeepers’ of news has never been more precarious.
The digital era has brought traditional journalism to the edge, forcing the industry to update its means in order to sustain the constant commercial pressure it is put under.
On some level, the digital era disrupted an already easily corruptible industry, while from another perspective, it has opened new opportunities for innovation and renovation, which could mean the restoring of such criticized profession.
It is inferable that the ‘Fourth Estate’, as in journalism acting as a watchdog and as provider of objective and impartial news, is in great danger.
The pressure to maximise profits and the frequent censorship, both as a result of government control, and market ownership, have undermined the industry’s professionalism as a whole.
At the same time, new media has been claimed to be a dynamic tool to enhance democracy, as it allows citizens to bypass the traditional mainstream news media and to get access to a plurality of information coming from alternative and independent news providers and online watchdog organizations, untouched by any kind of pressure.
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.
The purpose of this report is to analyse journalism practices employed in newspaper reporting across different outlets and to analyse if the practice was in line with the media
Due to the results of the Leveson inquiry, much has changed for the ways in which the British Press must work within the parameters of Media law. The inquiry has left much of the public untrusting and suspicious of journalism as a practice, and after the publishing of Leveson’s report, it is as though they are just waiting for another slip-up by media institutions.
He believes that the capitalist colonization of the digital world has led to this collapse of professional-quality journalism as a result of the further commercialization of journalism. In recent years, investigative journalism has been declining and media companies have shifted away from it and settled for repeating prepackaged messages. It is difficult for real journalism to exist when its revenue is based on advertisement. McChesney argues that journalism should be considers as public goods and that we should create non-commercial forms of journalism and non-profit media. One of the “darkest episodes of American journalism history” was the invasion of Iraq based on the U.S. administration’s claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. These claims went unchallenged by the media because of the lack of investigative journalism, McChesney believes. Furthermore, he ends with bold proposals to reform journalism and the entire media. He proposes a strict regulation of advertising and limitations on ownership of broadcast media and expansion of nonprofit and publicly supported journalism. I agree with McChesney about the decline of quality journalism and I believe reforms to media must happen. However, I am uncertain how this would be possible with all the control these wealthy corporations, and their partners, have over the media. It will need a huge
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.
Why was this a huge deal the us just created it own problem when 9/11 happened we went into afghanistan wan who was there to stop them the same people who they just trained a few years back they had new moral kill anything that is in their way they were using tactics that the us has never seen by using ieds and shooting at soldiers than hiding in the shadows and watching what their next move was.
Does history repeat itself? Most people would think that the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s are a repeat of the Salem witch trials. Accusations were false as well as fictional, in fact the only reason people were accused at all were for the personal gain of the accuser. Both instances of these accusations (the McCarthy hearings and the witch trials) only accused people others to make themselves look better, or to gain respect. They both wanted to gain respect because it was not something they had much of, especially the girls of salem. In 1692, people accused of being witches were used as scapegoats for society’s issues; once more in 1950, people instead were accused of being communist, but were used as scapegoats for society’s issues. Looking back, both cases were pointless and caused nothing positive with the exception of people looking back on other’s mistakes. Many people were killed in the town of Salem in, and if they were not killed, they had their reputations ruined forever. Anyone charged by Joseph McCarthy had their reputations as well as their careers demolished. None of this would have ever happened if the people involved in these hearings and trials had broke out
Now and days every person must take at least two years of history in order to pass high school. Many people, including myself, ask the question,“Why must we take history?” Well the answer many of us get is, “ So that history does not repeat itself.” The real question of the matter is, Does history repeat itself? History has repeated itself over and over again. An example of this would be the genocide that occurred in the Ottoman empire in 1915, nearly 88 years later another genocide has occurred in Darfur in 2003. These two events are both similar and different in ways, but none-the-less are proof that history does in deed repeat itself.
Nowadays journalists have the responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. ‘’The, honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth’’ (Casey, 1944b).
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
It is without a doubt that the Globalisation of the media has increased our access to information about people and events around the world. However, during the process it has also shifted issues on what should or should not be in the public domain due to media ownership led by Western media corporations. The media shape is reconstructing itself, forming a singular global body playing an essential part in our democracy socially, politically, economically and culturally. Due to this, the effects of globalisation towards Journalism have become very debatable to whether it is benefiting the practice of journalism or hindering it. During the course of this essay, it will explore the affect globalisation has on the media (especially journalism), the affect of media ownership and how new technologies have influenced journalism.
In order to recognize the reasons behind the assumption that the Fourth Estate is dead, its principles and codes needed to be made clear. The term “Fourth Estate” was used by conservative Edmund Burke in the eighteenth century as a way to mock the press as they always seek to expose and disclose information that are not “desired” to be known. (Hirst) However, over time, it has become important description of the objectives that are assumed to be a must for the press. In specific, “Fourth Estate” describes the role of the press as “watch dogs” in society. The definition our society attached to the press varies. For instance, Pippa Norris stated in the book “Driving Democracy:”
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
The overview of the subject matter is that the big worry is that quality will decline Journalists are employed to check their facts and they get checked in turn by editors who question the reliability of their sources; we trust the paper’s brand not the individual journalist. Social media could be reliable, but how would we know? This is equally true then it comes to bias. But the fact of the matter is journalism is more credible and if we lose credibility in the information we get everything could fall for speculation. The authors’ thesis is we should not stand for the decline of journalism as a profession but support our right to have valuable information
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