Journalism in a Changing World
By Emmanuel Perilla
The Internet and the digital age has changed the way people have received and processed information. The task of journalists today is to keep up with the way consumers are getting their information and present the news in a way that keeps the public interested and informed at the same time.
Some newsrooms have already started using different approaches to appeal to their audience. For example, the article “Open Journalism Now: A new framework for informing communities” states, “Open Journalism has a significant major media champion in Alan Rusbridger, editor of the U.k. based Guardian, which announced a ramped-up digital push this year placing open journalism at the heart of its strategy.
“Rusbridger’s staff has steadily expanded liveblogging, content networking and crowdsourcing to engage the Guardian’s online audience in the processes as well as the outcomes of news work. “Rusbridger told me he hopes to find still more and better ways to involve readers actively in the news process.
The editor of The Guardian clearly understands what it means to adapt to the changing cultural landscape. His attempt to appeal to his newspaper’s online audience is something that should be followed by other newsrooms because he’s using creative new approaches to engage the public.
He understands that a lot of people spend a lot of time online and for his paper to survive, it needs to stay entertaining and relevant. In today’s world, the only way for newsrooms to serve the public well is to consider how their audience uses technology. Newsrooms like the U.K. Guardian will be ahead of the curve since they are taking an active effort to keep up with the way their audience prefers to process information.
Newsrooms can also stay relevant by considering the feedback of their readers and start a process where their audience can have some type of open communication with them. For example, “Open Journalism Now: A new framework for informing communities” states, “The New York Times has steadily though quietly been opening windows into its thinking through blogs, user participation, and social media.
“Columnist Nicholas Kristof, like a growing number of journalists, invites readers to follow him on various sites, including Twitter, whereas of late November he had more than 1.19 million followers. “He doesn’t just tweet links, he frequently responds to questions and comments from followers, retweet others and hands out compliments.
Publications like the New York Times engaging with their readers through blogs and having them follow journalists on Twitter is obviously having a positive effect on their image as a genuine journalistic newspaper. In the digital era the way for people to plug in with current events and important news is through social media and other online avenues.
People are clearly responding to these new approaches in a good way since many journalists are followed on Twitter and keep a casual conversation with their audience when it comes to the news. In order for journalism to stay relevant to the public, the job of the journalist is to make sure there relating to their audience and in the future new approaches and ideas will have to be considered and implemented for the newsrooms to stay relatable.
