Impact of technology on journalism

ANXIETY ABOUT THE FUTURE of careers in newspaper journalism continues to escalate as technology advances.

Several challenges face the industry: readership is shrinking almost as fast as advertisers are moving to other media such as Craigslist.com, bloggers and 24-hour TV news channels have snatched what’s left of newspapers role as a source of breaking news and reduced newspapers to some kind of news archive.

This fact prompted one TV broadcasting professor to tell her students, “If you want yesterday’s news, read the newspaper.”

But what newspapers have lost in immediacy, they have gained in quality and in-depth reporting, a noble fact, but one that does not seem to be winning new fans.

Journalism, as a career, is also under threat. At last month’s seminar “Journalism in the Intenet Age,” Yahoo News editorial Director Bill Gannon said bloggers stand an equal or better chance of establishing a career in journalism.

Gannon is convinced current trends in technology spell doom for newspapers and that journalism students need to learn about technology to stay afloat.

To be competitive, Gannon said, students should create blogs and post regularly. His argument favoring bloggers is simple: their work doesn’t pass through a series of editing before publication, which gives employers a better measure of a blogger’s writing capability and ability to work with technology.

Photojournalists are not spared the wrath of technology either. Cell phones, digital cameras and video gadgets have created a new source of photos for the media.

And software such as Adobe Photoshop are making it easier for amateur photographers to create enviable photo displays, without having to worry about ethics.

Well, it sucks for journalists to think a blogger, without a journalism background, can jump out of bed, post a blog and be taken just as seriously as a professional journalist dodging bullets in the battlefield.

But newspapers have a lot to blame for the current situation. Most were slow in recognizing the changing trends, and cautiously opted for token response such as establishing basic Web sites, updated at the same pace and with the same contents as the day’s newspaper.

There is no doubt that the same technology threatening to devour the newspaper industry is also its key to survival.

Consider this, a 2004 article in the Christian Science Monitor, said major technology companies such as Sony Corp., were looking into making thin digital screens that folded like newspapers.

The screens, according to the article, would be as thin as aluminum foil, a size that could easily be rolled and stuffed in the back pocket. The technology is already here, an article in a technology Web site, TMC.net, said some of the world’s top newspaper publishers are planning to introduce the new screens, which would allow users to download entire editions from the Web, as early as next year.

Such technology may come with a steep price tag, but with vultures looking down on the newspaper industry, it is worth looking into.

While the future of newspapers is meshed with how well it adapts to competition from technology and the Internet, the future of journalism students depends on how well they prepare for the possibility of newspapers’ demise and converting to a more integrated and interactive multi-media environment.

Comment on this story in the Opinion forum >>