As
technology changes and improves, many aspects of daily life change with it. The
question is whether these changes are improvements or if things are only
changing for the worse. In journalism, this topic is highly debated. Some
experts say that journalism is dying due to the fact that people are not
reading newspapers or getting their news from sites like The Wall Street Journal anymore. I highly disagree with these
experts and side with Stijn Debrouwere. Debrouwere claims that news today is as
strong as ever and that it is just changing. Before the internet, people would
read the newspaper in the morning, skimming headlines to try and pick out
stories that were applicable to their lives. Once the internet was up and
running, people would simply go to the news site that corresponded with their
favorite newspaper. Now, there are sites that compile massive amounts of news
and allow people to skim through the headlines of many news sources to find the
best articles for them. Twitter.com is likely the most prominent and customizable
of these sites. Users simply chose which news sources will likely interest them
the most and follow them. The news accounts usually post the headlines and
links to most, if not all, of their stories. This allows users to scroll
through all of the news that they want to see. Not only that, but since users
can follow other users, I can see what my friends are reading about. Somebody
might follow a news source that I do not know about but will likely interest
me. Twitter makes it much easier for users to discover new news as well. Back
in the day, before the internet and all of these customizable sources, it was
much more difficult for people to discover new sources of news. You essentially
could only read the news that was in your area. Now though, thanks to sites
like twitter, people can discover any side to a news story they want, as well
as discover new aspects of the news that they never knew existed.
Discussion Questions:
1. Where do you see news gathering going in the future?
2. Can social media function as social media AND as a news site?
3. Where do you gather your news?
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