Journalism in the Age of Information

Madison McClary

mm326315@ohio.edu

     Throughout the years, technology has grown and changed a great deal. Journalism, in some senses, has had to change with it. Journalism has morphed from being viewed as silent solidarity to something of a he says-she says. Although the ideas and viewpoints of journalism have changed, the main purpose of journalism has stayed the same: "to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing”.

     Journalism in this modern age can be a bit confusing, but it ultimately helps us define our community’s stories. In the past, the community would rely on their local newspaper or news source on TV to get their information. Now, we are overwhelmed with the amount of information at our fingertips. Masters in Communication writes, “Today's journalists face a new set of challenges. They're no longer the runaway experts in the fields they write in. Today, their readers may be smarter, and better informed than they are.” (n.d.). Journalist’s purpose in this new age of technology has shifted. They have gone from being the only source of information; the people we went to for all of our facts, to being less of our fact-checkers and more of our explainers. In our reading this week, we learned that what we really need journalists for these days isn’t information- it’s explanation.

     We can learn just about everything ourselves in a matter of seconds. Whether that’s a news story, or the weather, information has been shifted into our hands as consumers. So what do we need journalists for? We need them to explain our findings. Stanford states that we don’t rely on a journalist for sole information anymore, we rely on “. . . their ability to gather and collect information into a single location where users can access it.” (n.d.). Much of the time, although we are able to gather information and find it in one place, we have a hard time understanding it. THIS is where the future for journalism lies. In the ability to feed their audience real, honest, facts in one place and explain their findings to them. 

     Much of the decline of trustworthy journalism in this age is due to time. 

“The one thing journalists don't have on their side anymore is time. They have to be first. They have to be fast. They don't have time anymore to become deeply engrossed in their stories. They don't have time to learn and ponder on their stories. They rely on quotes from other experts to shape their stories.” (Masters in Communication, n.d.).

           If we can get journalists into the field who are quick, but who are able to get all of their information in one place with explanations, then the field of journalism would see a rise again.