Response 4- Digital Journalism

When I think of journalism i imagine a newspaper, a magazine and a reporter scribbling away in their notebook. Growing up a journalist was a writer, someone who literally chased down the current events and was on scene. Today however with the addition of the word digital to the phrase it opens a whole new door.

I think about how many views of the news are available to us today and how easy they are to access. When the riots in Ferguson happened we not only had the main stream media view we had the views of people in the marches, watching from the sides. There was a Ustream page which was live broadcast of the events from the eyes of the rioters. That is an incredible example of digital journalism by someone who probably has no journalistic experience whatsoever. That ability however greatly reshapes the idea of news, of current events. Now when we want to know whats happening in the world we can do it by clicking a hashtag or a hyperlink we no longer need to turn on channel 2, 4 or 7. We know whats happening before the evening news is even aired. Its journalism in real time. Even though there may be more fact finding after the event happens we still have the run down and anything that comes after is trivial or opinion based.

The other way the news has changed is through the option of photo and video. We don’t have to read an entire page to know whats going on we can look at a series of pictures or even a video of the event to know. For example yesterday afternoon near the barclays center there was a brawl between rival groups of teens from various area high schools. An onlooker shot video of it and that video sums up the event more than any article ever could (check that out here: http://abc7ny.com/news/video-online-video-shows-student-stabbing-melee-near-barclays-center/995944/ ). Not only does that video tell us what happened it also becomes part of the police investigation, social media posts like that one can catalogue the tensions leading up that and paint an entire picture without a word being written.

Photo based journalism that tells a story through mainly pictures with minimal writing are also changing the journalism world. I think of the popular FB or IG page   ( https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork ). This is a little different than reporting the news but its still telling life stories and points of view using photography. This is also what the 9-11 digital archive does, it tells so many stories through so many different photos and angles.

So yes the digital era has greatly altered the news and how we get it. We can log on Facebook and read 7 different posts about one event but i don’t think thats a bad thing at all. Thats 7 view points, 7 fact findings and 7 styles of writing to broaden our knowledge of a subject and in a diverse ever growing culture i think thats a great thing.