Ch. 2 Summary

The media today is changing, as it always has, but certainly not dying.

What used to be a strictly news from newspaper society is now a scrolling on the phone and computer for news society. The older generation that prefers newspapers are dying out, and the next generation is addicted to fast news.

The debate is whether or not newspapers will ever go distinct, because so many mobile media sources get their information from the print sources. And of course there is the reliability of a newspaper that does not come from mobile sources, where anyone can pose as a valid news source.

So the question that’s dealt with in this chapter is how journalists handle this new age of media gracefully. And how does one ethically deliver factual news to a society that is losing trust in the media industry.

The timeliness that is offered from new media outlets is incredible but also creates the major problem of fragmentation. Fragmentation of media sources plays a huge part in the media’s currently poor economical status.

A solution to fragmentation is convergence, which entails being a versatile journalist. Essentially convergence allows for the blending of multiple communication forms.

The challenge many media companies are facing today is how to make a profit from their mobile sources or even how to be economically successful in a not-for-profit site.

Today the majority of jobs for journalists are found in local online news sources, TV news stations, and on the rare occasion, print news companies.

What does this mean to me?

-A lot of this was not new information to me, but it was also really good to read it as facts. I want to be a journalist so this chapter effected me very personally. I would love more than anything to find a job as a journalist that I could actually get paid for and I see it as a challenge that I am willing to accept.