A Disturbing Lack of News?
With the emergence of the internet the use of journalism has changed. This new medium of transferring news brought about new challenges in reaching consumers, especially since many began using digital devices and stopped reading physical copies of newspapers. The question arises: Is journalism changing in a way that is beneficial to society or is it running down a self-destructive path because of technological adaptations?
Currently journalism is making a shift to digitize their content to reach as many people as possible however, there is a lot of pseudo-news that makes its way into news feeds. For example, their are companies like BuzzFeed that constantly put our articles on why cats are taking over the internet. Most consumers do not need to read about these things yet there is still a significant readership wasting their time reading these articles. As Marc Fisher puts it in his “Who Cares If It’s True?” article on Columbia Journalism Review, “BuzzFeed editors say their audience used to see their site as a place you could find really cool stuff, but not a place you could trust.” The readers know it is not useful news, yet they choose to stay. Buzzfeed even accepts the fact that when they do post noteworthy news there could possibly be factual errors, yet this does not stop them from wanting to keep their posts up, particularly popular posts. The public is left in the dark and other journalists do not consider their stories journalism.
Fighting among newer news conglomerates often ends in the old companies not taking them seriously. For example there are sites like Vice and Gawker who seem to have a rivalry that has arisen after an article posted by Gawker denounced the validity of Vice’s news. Vice’s reaction was in the form of an article, “VICE to Gawker: Fuck You and Fuck Your Garbage Click-Bait ‘Journalism.’” Vice very explicitly says how they feel about the writers of the slanderous article within the first sentence of their own stating, “Gawker, a gossip site that openly traffics in rumor, innuendo, and in many cases straight-up bullshit,… recently published an inaccurate and irresponsible story about VICE’s workplace.” The way these different news outlets argue about who is and who is not real journalism causes many other long-standing companies, like New Stateman, to criticize them as childish new age social media groups. As New Stateman’s article “VICE vs Gawker: the best media bitch fight ever?” states, “Sheesh, you guys, get a room — on acid.” The difference between the two newer companies causes fighting, which leads to questioning of the direction journalism is taking.
While there is a lot of in-fighting between companies that do not want to change their ways and those who do not want to embrace the old ways, there are some companies, such as Record, who have learned to make a balance. Better known as York Daily Record, this older company has learned to integrate their news in our digital age while keeping print alive and well. According to Fisher, companies like Record might be the key to future journalism.
