Can Web Journalism Replace Traditional Media? By David Stent
Four years ago the CEO of Microsoft, Steve Balmer, stated in
an interview with the Washington Post that, “There will be no media consumption
in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no
newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets
delivered in electronic form.” Now with six years to go until we see if his
prediction comes true or not, it is beginning to look more and more likely.
If we were to look back not even two decades such a
statement would have been fobbed off by most, yet the rate at which technology
is advancing and connecting the world is so rapid it seems very likely that web
journalism could very well replace traditional media.
A recent documentary, Page One, on the New York Times
explores this exact question. Surely a behemoth, an American institution such
as the New York Times need not worry about whether some unknown Internet
writers and bloggers could ever become bigger than them? The editors and the
writers of the NYT certainly seem worried that they can.
There are many factors as to how this will happen, the most
obvious of them being what does the reader want? In this day and age where information is so readily available,
the convenience and accessibility factors of worldly news are starting to trump
that of quality. Internet readers want quick bite sized titbits of information
to satisfy them, a six-month investigative expose rarely keeps one glued when
it is on a computer screen.
The New York Times are one of the fortunate companies that
have both a regular national and international readership that allows them to
keep afloat with constant sales and advertising revenue, other smaller print
outlets have not been able to keep up. It has become far cheaper and easier to
advertise online, and such advertisement reaches a far wider audience.
Two very telling facts here is that in America in 2008 &
2009 more than 30,000 newsroom jobs were lost, and in 2010 40 newspapers were forced
to stop their presses, of these only 2 went online. It is obvious the change
from traditional media to online is happening at a frightening pace. Who could
have foreseen an entire industry collapse within a decade?
Online media doesn’t necessarily have to mean that bloggers
are to replace the roles of journalists in society, but the move from
traditional press media to an online format is as likely as the evolution from
horse drawn carriages to motor vehicles. It is something that should be embraced,
not feared. Using the New York Times as an example again, the have had to
change their business model in order to use technology as an advantage of
theirs, and this can be seen in their excellent online publications that are
available on tablet computers.
Ultimately the problem that print publications face is that
the loss of advertising revenue to the Internet is so crippling that without
moving to become an online media source their business is most likely doomed.
The balance between maintaining a presence in the print industry and being
successful online is tough to balance, especially with the increase bloggers,
Twitter and the like.
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