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Current Journalsim
Right now you are sitting at a computer or sprawled out on your couch with your phone in your hand or maybe even walking to a restaurant while reading this, and that is what makes the time period we live in so much more different than anything we've ever seen before.
The platforms we receive our news and entertainment or almost anything for that matter has drastically changed and these changes aren't going to slow down. In the modern age that we live in, almost anything we could possibly imagine is at our finger tips. This is why so many people around the world choose to get their news through some sort of online or digital platform.
In a survey, researchers found that most people prefer to get their news from some sort of screen whether that be by reading it online or watching it on television. The convenience of having to hit a button on your television remote or clicking a button or two on your phone to get your news is about as easy as it gets.
Along with the convenience factor, there are seemingly endless news stories that are on the internet to read. But with the ever changing platforms for consuming news, this makes it more difficult to decipher what is actually true news and what is fake news done by someone who is not a journalist. This hasn't always been the case, because the ways that we get news and information hasn't always been this simple.
News Before the Digital Age
As you know, the way we intake our news has changed throughout time, but how much has it really changed? Well, the short answer is... a lot.
When the first printing press was created, it changed the world. Rather than just spreading news by world of mouth, a journalist could write a story, have it set up in the printing press and then out comes mass copies of the story. These copies were spread and this was the main way people began to get their news, and it only grew from there.
The next big thing that became a factor in news distribution was the radio. Now all that you needed to get your news was a radio and a nice comfy chair to sit in while you listened to it. The radio in the average household has the center piece.
Like clockwork, every evening, families would gather around the radio and listen to the nightly news or listen to their favorite radio program. Ones like President Franklin Roosevelt's "fireside chats" became famous. Many people at this time still subscribed and read the newspaper to get their news, but the radio made it even easier to consume. At this time, the journalist and public didn't really have to worry about fake news.
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| Photo via Luxorion |
The Future of Journalism
Where is journalism going in the future? Well, that's a hard question because no one really knows. Like I talked about earlier, all a journalist has to do to get news into your hand is to write a story and post it online. For the most part, the job of a journalist hasn't really changed much.
Their job is to report on newsworthy events and write stories that encompass these events. The only problem that we face now and will most likely continue to face, is how do we define a journalist in the modern day?
Since we are so connected on the internet, anyone can pull out their cellphone and write a story and post it online, but is that really journalism? That's for you to decide. The future of journalism and how we consume our news is not predictable. We don't know what this will look like in ten years from now, so prepare yourself because you never know how it will change.
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