Blog I did on my own accord.
With the explosion of technology not only in the newsroom, but also all over the world, many news organizations have had to redesign how they present the news to the public. Online news organizations like the Huffington Post, as well as social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have essentially changed the game of information sharing in our world today. Offering up-to-the-second breaking news, they offer the reader speed and accuracy never before achievable with the traditional news organization. Many are left to wonder if the days of picking the family newspaper up from the newsstand is on its last leg. Not wanting to be left in the dust, traditional news organizations like the New York Times and the San Jose Mercury News are doing everything they can to stay relevant.
The problem is that with news organizations doing everything they can to keep ahead of the curve, they have begun to slack in other areas. With teams that are typically very small, it has become easier for these people to make mistakes. competing with a news force of billions of people, traditional news organizations have to work exponentially harder to get the story to their readers first, often sacrificing journalism ethics and accuracy in the process. A few weeks ago a CBS news reporter picked up misinformation about the death of Joe Paterno, and reported it as fact. A local college news paper printed a story without proper citations that Joe Paterno had died prematurely, and after big budget CBS news reported it, the public was not happy. This was a career ending move for this CBS reporter, but he was only trying to be the first on the scene and report the news first for his hungry readers.
It has become true that traditional reporters are being out-manned by digital citizen reporters, and it is becoming harder and harder to report accurate information at a breaking news pace. Facebook and Twitter have created the biggest user information web of all time, and the truth is, traditional news organizations are fighting a losing battle. They are doing all they can to stay relevant in this constantly evolving and changing world of technology, but it’s becoming increasingly hard to teach old dogs new tricks.