What Has The Digital Era Done to Journalism?

Spencer Charlton - sc506816@ohio.edu

As technology continues to advance so too does the way news and information is spread and received. But as technology continues to develop so too does a darker side of journalism, one that gives people more opportunity to "examine, question and critique the journalists and journalism organizations behind the news".

However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gives people the opportunity to keep journalists and journalistic institutions in check. Making sure their facts are correct and the news is being reported efficiently, timely and most importantly effectively. But even this doesn't hold a flame to the way that revenue-based advertising has affected one of the most important principles of journalism, independence.

Independence grew out of an imperative that held journalists and news organizations to a standard that since they created and reported the news, then they should not slant the news to a certain view. The notion of independence was itself bred in an era where technology had advanced leaps and bounds supplanting the previous notion of transparency.

                                          Image of the way news and technology has coalesced via  
                                                    The NAOC 

With independence gone, we have seen a dramatic increase in the opaqueness of journalism. For one there is an increasing amount of journalists and journalistic organizations doing the one thing transparency and independence is supposed to prevent, slanting the news to a perceived side or viewpoint.

It may seem now more than ever that journalism is simply an illusion. And by illusion, I don't mean fake or not real. What I mean is it has become something that people have struggled to identify who even is a journalist nowadays.

The digital era has greatly affected the core tenets of journalism. It has warped these tenets, made them something the people don't even believe actually exist anymore. And if they do, they are simply out of fashion and do not advance the ethics of journalism, nor the actual efficiency and trustworthiness of reporting.

But it is worth noting that the digital age has also brought a plethora of options for consumers. There is a wide array of news sources and outlets to choose from, allowing news consumers to pick and choose where they get their news from. Thus it allows those same consumers to call for more transparency within the news.

While the digital era has hampered journalism and the ethics that have come with it, it has also begun to revive many of the core tenets that make journalism more ethical and thus more trustworthy. It should be duly noted that the combination of increasing demands for transparency from consumers and the advancement of technology will only serve to better communication lines between the press and the people.

While it may seem right now that all these different polarizing news outlets are damaging transparency, and for the time they somewhat are, it can only improve with the digital age. Even these oftentimes one-sided news outlets will develop "policies of accuracy and fairness, even those whose values don't service their agendas." Transparency will only improve as the digital age progresses.