Social media and other various aspects of the Internet have quickly begun to infiltrate nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Coupled with this infiltration is the reality that many individuals are no longer seeking traditional methods of news consumption. Many citizens turn to Twitter, Facebook, and other common forms of social media for their daily news fix.
Director of community engagement and social media for Journal Register Co. Steve Buttry, provides some interesting insight into the world of digital journalism. Buttry describes a world of journalism using a “digital first” approach. Essentially, Buttry provides a blueprint for news organizations to create content strictly for the web first with the print content coming second.
In his blog Buttry breaks down each reporter’s daily tasks from taking photos, to tweeting, to taking video and creating a traditional news story for the web and print version. He also suggests tweeting various news stories which makes sense considering the large number of people turning to Twitter for breaking news.
I think Buttry’s vision make sense if feasible. At this current juncture news organizations are asking their reporters to do more with less. Buttry believes that reporters will be forced to be more well-rounded; taking video, photos and audio among other things. This will likely be the case but with smaller news organizations the transformation will be difficult due to a lack of funding for expensive equipment that would need to be provided to each reporter according to Buttry’s vision. But no matter the case, I believe this is likely the future for the world of news journalism.
I actually don’t believe it will be all that difficult for traditional newsrooms to reform. For the most part nearly every major publication is already creating content for the web. In fact, many publications have content that only appears in their online version of the website. Sometimes the content never appears in print. Smaller news organization may struggle with the transformation but they will operate similar to the way they do now; create as much content as possible using the resources available.
In the future newsrooms will probably have to reform if they want to continue to be profitable and reap success. But given the current state of affairs news publications are still relying on creating news for a print model and they must to remain profitable.
The Internet changes at such a rapid pace it is difficult to predict what the future holds for journalism. But it is almost certain newsrooms will eventually be forced to adapt to a “digital first” approach.
No comments:
Post a Comment