Instead, by taking the best qualities of the new model, such as the computerized access, delivery and packaging of the information, and taking the best from the traditional model, such as insightful reporting in a well written story, a hybrid model is then created by combining the best of both worlds.

McLuhan explains this process as the creation of a hybrid which blends the old and the new to create a superior medium. “The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them on our senses.” (Marshall McLuhan, Communication Theorist) This hybrid medium extends the mind and the eye.

This change in the mass communication model is happening so rapidly, the digital revolution is upon us. Writing, now can be looked at as a form of technology, as it follows the computer-mediated communication, where forms of writing such as e-mail have become a popular communication method all over the world.

This new communication revolution is shifting power to the people. This power shift threatens the dominance of the traditional mass media forms, such as, television, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers, all of which were built based on the one-to-many communication model. It seems as though print newspapers are the first of the media types to become rather vulnerable during this time. There is, however, a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Publishers and editors of print newspapers alike have began to acknowledge and embrace this conversion. In attempts to keep all of their audiences, some newspapers have began to create new electronic publications on the internet. Electronic publications have been born!

Being that the electronic newspapers are so new, there are a lot of loop-holes that need to be addressed. So far, online newspapers are not working commercially or conceptually. There are issues that need to be addressed and worked out from a business stand point, such as how, and what to charge for online publications. Currently, some of the newest established electronic newspapers are charging readers only for access to the achieves. Some electronic publications have generated income by selling classified and display ads, for advertisement funding. Basically, “the newspaper needs to reinvent itself as it finds its place in cyberspace.” (Jon Katz, Wired Magazine) This will evolve as we move further in the direction of digital journalism.

Reinventing journalism is certainly not an easy task for an industry that works under constant strict deadlines to produce a new product each and every day. By reflecting on the past, and analyzing journalism as a craft and as a profession, the real essence of the industry will be able to shape and take place in a modern tone for the world we live in today and in the future.

With this new digital era upon us, journalists are gradually being forced to start to escape from the “traditional way of doing things.” That, perhaps, instead of just your basic news and reporting, journalists should begin to use their power to steer the public in the right direction when it comes to having an opinion on a newsworthy issue.

“The press needs a new mission, and the nation needs someone to help initiate and lead the discussion of what kind of place America will be in the twenty-first century.” (Brent Cunningham)

Reading a daily newspaper is a ritual for many middle-aged and older Americans today. However today’s younger generation has a more sophisticated ritual as they look towards several media outlets for their daily information. It is common for our generation to wake up in the morning, and turn a computer on first thing, while checking email and surfing the web, rather than coffee over the morning newspaper. With use of the internet, more information is available to more people, more quickly than ever before.

Our generation is privileged with all of the new technology and advancements at our fingertips to make our journalism career easier. A generation brought up in a high tech, fast paced, one-click-away society. Welcome to the technological revolution, it has arrived.

Journalists of the future will need to express talent to survive in the digital age, “skilled editors, reporters, and image artists who are able to find meaning in the approaching informational glut.” (veteran journalist, Max Frankel)

Besides improving the delivery of the news, technology will improve the research and news gathering aspect of newspapers. With use of the many-to-many model the journalist must take note that news on the internet starts from the bottom and makes its way to the top. With that being said, the journalist now has the opportunity to really get to know and interact with their audience like never before. This goes way beyond the aspect of “letters to the editor”, journalists now have the ability to have a better knowledge of their audience, and writing and reporting that more closely reflects reader’s overall interests and values.

The world wide web has began to serve as a medium for online news. With the emergence of the digital era, mainline producers of news began to create online extensions of their newspapers or broadcasts. One of the advantages of online news reportage is the immediacy that it brings. Print media find a conflict when breaking news strikes whether to release the breaking news on their website before they print it in their newspaper.

Research on a journalists behalf is especially important as we enter this digital era. The internet has allowed information to be at our fingertips, making solid research a top priority. “Using computers, databases, online services are becoming standard for nearly everyone in the newsroom” (Philip Moeller, American Journalism Review)

While many newspapers may be searching for an elusive answer, the only certainty we have currently is that there is no one correct way to do things. Each newspaper must discover its own way of conquering this digital age, creating the content in the format their readers want and make it work for them.

There are two ways in which the “new media” have had an impact on the news. One being from the point of view of the consumers of the news, the readers or the viewers, while the other is from the creators of the news or the journalists and newscasters.

This “new media” has opened up many new channels, mainly on the Internet.  Mainstream media, such as print and broadcast, have both developed and maintain websites in which their audience can log on to view headlines or breaking news and stories throughout the day.

Search engines have even created alerts and provide a service where they can scan the web on behalf of personalized user accounts, giving the results of selected news items that fit the user’s interests and can e-mail them updates however they wish.

This “new media” also has paved the way for a news aggregator, or “feed reader”, a software application, website or a service that collects syndicated content and provides a consolidated view for the user.

“Newspapers themselves are beginning to understand that to best serve their customers they too must aggregate. Some newspapers have begun to provide links from their Web sites to other news sites on the Web. But perhaps a more dramatic development is that they have been acquiring news aggregators as part of their operations.” (Robert K Logan, Understanding New Media)

The online news environment blurs the distinction between news and information by linking the past with the immediate present. When breaking news is added, once it becomes known, then it then turns into background material for the interpretation of the latest events that take place afterward.
Citizen journalism comes along with this digital era, the emergence of the audience being able to have their voice heard for once. This digital age has opened up a door to a whole new way for the audience to be involved and have some say on what they read. Whether it be simply a reaction, praise or criticism. Online articles give the “comment” option, where readers can then use such comments to bring up some point that may have been missed by the writer, or add new information that the reporter was unaware of. Such readers potentially make the original story better.
Rich Gordon, chair of Newspapers and New Media at Northwestern University pointed out that for citizen journalism to be effective and successful there needs to be a “citizen editor”.
The role of a citizen editor is to solicit other people to provide accurate information and encourage interactivity among the users. With the freedom of public commentary, there has to be some sort of censoring.
While anyone can participate in citizen journalism, it takes a talented, dedicated individual to be a citizen editor. A person who can take initiative for the good of the community.

Journalists are able to gather and distribute news more widely than ever before. Online news organizations, nonprofit investigative reporting projects, public broadcasting stations, bloggers, and community news sites with citizen participation just to name a few. Together these are all creating a different definition of news.

Reporting in general is even evolving, it is becoming more participatory and collaborative. Collaborative journalism is on the rise as reporters go beyond the news room staff to include reporting from freelancers, students and citizen journalists. Mutualized newspapers, papers that include reporting from all different sorts of reporters, will soon be on the rise.

Reporting will however always be an important part of journalism and our society. Reporting helps create an informed society. We need reporters not only to interview but to interpret, analyze, have an informed opinion and advocacy. News reporting provides our society with the vital information in order to participate in society and in daily life.

This digital era is opening up many new possibilities for reporting. “Journalists can research much more widely, update their work repeatedly, follow it up more thoroughly, verify it more easily, compare it with that of competitors, and have it enriched and fact-checked by readers.” (Leonard Downie)

The internet has made research faster, easier and richer, but it will never be able to take the place of interviews, being there or narrative.

This digital technology is a blessing. Sure, people may be stressed about this emerging period right now that we need to go through in order to get where we are going for the future of news, but it will eventually pass. The digital news environment will constantly continue to evolve throughout our lifetime.

Journalism will never die, it just evolves with the rest of the world.

some live reporting at EMU with my digital journalism group

Journalism today is indeed at a very transformational moment. We must face the facts of just how much change journalists are going to face in the industry, yet be open to this change and embrace the digital era.

Having the internet at our fingertips allow journalists to gather and distribute news more widely in new ways than ever before. Online news organizations, nonprofit investigative reporting projects, public broadcasting stations, bloggers, and community news sites with citizen participation just to name a few. Together these are all creating a different definition of news.

Reporting in general is even evolving, it is becoming more participatory and collaborative. Collaborative journalism is on the rise as reporters go beyond the news room staff to include reporting from freelancers, students and citizen journalists. Alan Rusbridger, editor of Britan’s Guardian newspaper claims that mutualized newspapers, papers that include reporting from all different sorts of reporters will soon be on the rise.

Reporting will however always be an important part of journalism and our society. Reporting helps create an informed society. We need reporters not only to interview but to interpret, analyze, have an informed opinion and advocacy. News reporting provides our society with the vital information in order to participate in society and in daily life. I think that we will always need reporters to cover the most in-depth, creditable stories.

“The challenge is to turn the current moment of transformation into a reconstruction of American journalism”

Right now, a lot of the news that people find whether it be on television, the radio or the internet, still originates with newspaper reporting. Newspapers are the main source of most local news reporting. It is the local news that will take the longest, in my opinion, to convert to the digital era.

This digital technology is a blessing. Sure, people may be stressed about this emerging period right now that we need to go through in order to get where we are going for the future of news, but it will eventually pass. This digital era is opening up many new possibilities for reporting. “Journalists can research much more widely, update their work repeatedly, follow it up more thoroughly, verify it more easily, compare it with that of competitors, and have it enriched and fact-checked by readers.”

Just think of all the information we have access to now from the internet, journalists have got it made in this day and age.

“The internet has made research faster, easier and richer but it will never be able to take the place of interviews, being there or narrative. “

Online newspapers are still very new, they are still learning how to profit off of them. Once the concept takes full speed and people begin to rely more heavily on the online newspaper, having the same kinds of fees as print will not be an issue. Unfortunately right now for most newspaper industries it is like survival of the fittest, who can keep there readers and emerge them successfully into the digital journalism world with a paid subscription to the newspaper website. This too, will eventually be an issue of the past.

Many new sources of news reporting have become significant factors in the reconstruction of American journalism. These sources include;

• digital news websites
• ambitious blogs
• pro-am journalism experiments (combining professional journalists with amateurs working together over the internet)
• hybrid news organizations

These are certainly not replacing newspapers or broadcast news, but they can start to increasingly depend on each other. The old media for news and investigative reporting and the newcomers for the larger audiences they can reach through newspapers, radio and television.

Journalism will never die, it just evolves with the rest of the world.

Christopher Harper describes the roles of the digital journalist rather well in his article Journalism in a Digital Age.

Harper states;

“Online journalism places far more power in the hands of the user, allowing the reader to challenge the traditional role of the publication as the gatekeeper of news and information. The user can depend on the gatekeeper to select and filter the news in the tradition manner, or the user can drill down to the basic documents of a story. In short, the user can look over the shoulder of the reporter by researching the original documents and easily comparing one reporter’s story with those of others by scanning news publications throughout the country. Archives also become easily accessible.

Second, online journalism opens up new ways of storytelling, primarily through the technical components of the new medium. Simply put, online journalists can provide a variety of media–text, audio, video, and photographs–unlike any other media. Data searching provides a means to acess information unable in other media.

Third, online journalism can provide outlets for nontraditional means of news and information. The internet enable everyone who owns a computer to have his or her own printing press. “

The digital news environment will constantly continue to evolve throughout our lifetime.

There was an interesting article on one of “the best journalism blogs”, Teaching Online Journalism which was describing how journalism students of today should have keen knowledge in;

1. Capturing audio and editing it
2. Video recording, production and editing
3. Web skills (which could be production, design and coding, Web journalism and blogging).

All of which are going to become required knowledge in the near future as we enter the digital age.

Here is my edited version of some of our video footage from the National Day on Writing at Eastern Michigan University. Enjoy!

PETA's "sexiest vegetarian is 70 years old"

Mimi Kirk was nominated PETA’s sexiest vegetarian. It’s hard to believe this lady is 70 years old…I want to look like her when I’m that age! Mimi is proof that age is just a number and the vegetarian lifestyle only gets better with time.

She has been a vegetarian for 40 years and a raw-food vegan for the past year and a half.

“I feel like I’m getting younger rather than older,” says Kirk.

She claims that she was starting to get sore joints at the age of 69, that is when she began her vegan raw-food diet. Since “going raw” she has had no signs of anything.

Looks like she is living proof that a vegetarian lifestyle really is a healthy lifestyle.

I just added Mimi Kirk on Facebook..in hopes that she will do an email interview with me for my Magazine Article Writing class, she would make the perfect candidate for the Q&A assignment.

Ahh…citizen journalism. It surely doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

I personally love being able to comment on news articles on-line. I also enjoy reading what others have to say. This digital age has opened up a door to a whole new way for the audience to be involved and have some say on what they read. Whether it be simply a reaction, praise or criticism.. I think that all of it can be looked at as a positive thing. Plus, like the article stated, “Readers routinely use such comments to bring up some point that was missed by the writer, or add new information that the reporter didn’t know about. Such readers can make the original story better.” How true that is!

I really liked Steve Outing’s idea of thinking outside the box a bit when it comes to citizen journalism and the public comment…allowing public commentary on calendar listings, obituaries and letters to the editor. Embrace the public voice a bit more! Why should public comments only be on news stories?

So now with all this public commenting..there has to be some sort of censoring. People are people and not all people are going to be 100% appropriate all of the time. While Steve Outing suggested that the web sites require users to register with their site before the able to post, that may work…but what about simply having a web monitor that has to approve or deny the commentary just like the settings you could have for your myspace wall? I think that would be the most effective.

My favorite is the open-source reporting. This way a journalist can use their readers to create an even better story that they could perhaps do on their own. Readers are asked to contribute their expertise, to help towards the final journalistic product. Announcing to your readers that you are going to be interviewing a famous celebrity or politician and asking them to submit potential questions for the interview, I think, is awesome.  A very productive way to involve your readers. I am looking forward to doing some open-source reporting of my own in the future.

The Hybrid newspaper  is a mixture of professional journalists and citizen journalists. The website based content is dominated by citizen submissions in the form of blogs and photo albums as well as community member discussions. There is also staff produced content as well. Accompanying the web site is a print edition that is comprised of the work of staff journalists but also includes citizen submissions. The citizen driven web site drives the content to the print edition.

As far as striking a balance between editorial control and citizen expression goes, I think as time goes on and citizen journalism becomes more popular, websites will come up with ways to monitor commentary. A person in charge of strictly editing anything that was inappropriate or libel.

After reading this article and all the steps to citizen journalism, I have come to the conclusion that we as journalism majors and aspiring journalists..need to embrace such a concept as citizen journalism and be able to incorporate it and use it to our benefit somewhere down the line.

Personally, I like how Cunningham states, “So the press needs a new mission, and the nation needs someone to help initiate and lead the discussion of what kind of place America will be in the twenty-first century.”

With this idea being taken into action, the press will have to begin to pay more attention to sustained coverage of ideas and solutions, rather than breaking news. For many journalists who have been in this field for years this will be more of a challenge for them. For those aspiring journalists of today, not so much.

The new age journalists objective may be to reflect what is best and what is most important of news coverage.

The relationship with the people was replaced by one-way conversation, from the press to the public.. which will now evolve drastically with the digital technology of today. I am interested to see how this all unfolds during my lifetime.

I will reflect back to this digital journalism class, sitting here at twenty one years old and think wow have things changed.

You have to build this voice for yourself. Let it be what suits you. To me, this reminds me of that little voice in your head, the voice of your thoughts, the one that you hear when you read your own work.

That “voice” is best demonstrated by Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) in the old TV show The Wonder Years. If that show was a part of our culture today, I can totally picture Kevin having an excellent blog or webzine.

Kevin on The Wonder Years

After I finished reading this article, I jumped on the web and started searching for some inspiring blogs by women. Of course the search results were endless. The first one that I could relate to and found myself reading word for word…was a blog called “Modite” by blogger Rebecca Thorman.

“A Generation Y Blog” , I thought to myself, how fitting!! A blog that bases it’s community around those of us whom are a part of Generation Y; the generation generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. You guessed it…I subscribed to her RSS feed. And you should too!

Rebecca Thorman’s categories on her blog are all very interesting, she has a lot that relate to our digital journalism class. Check this one out inparticular.

I am choosing her to identify with, learn her style. I think it would be really cool to have a blog with followers like she has. She seems to have really made a name for herself with the blog and created quite a following. Her RSS feed alone has 1,019 subscribers.

Let me know what you think about her blog!