Journalism today

Somayya safa
Journalism and Society
3 min readOct 1, 2018

By Somayya Safa

Photo via Canva

In today’s society, our lives revolve around social media and technology.

Social media has changed our lives both positively and negatively and has shaped the way we communicate and how news reaches us. Nowadays anyone can report and become a journalist and partake as a citizen journalist, if someone is at the right place at and at the right time, all they need is a smartphone, and in an instant, they can upload it or live stream it through all social media network and other news outlets report on it.

There’s no doubt that a journalist still holds the power of words to write and report on a story of an event that’s taking place. But how fast one is able to adapt through these changes and evolve with the shift from traditional media to digital media is all about gaining the trust of the audience and reaching out to them with what’s trending by reporting facts and attracting headlines.

The future of journalism is not dying, but it’s changing, shifting to digital and evolving, outweighing what was once the breakthrough of starting something from the beginning of time to what is now called the twenty-first century, out with old in with the new, and we can’t stop what’s happening because, that’s the reality of our time and how we are living.

But when it comes to social media platforms it’s a good source of getting something viral and picking up the story from a point of view other than just a journalist. It’s a way to get a community to get connected and part take in a story that could have life to it and be an on and going story.

Social media sites should be held as a journalistic standard in part taking a story to a next level edition that part takes outside sources in helping you develop the story in a more social way. This standard is best to describe when something goes viral it’s picked up in that very moment not when journalists get to it in a week and pick up after it has gone viral and sources got to it first. That being said when developing a story it’s being held on the standard of a journalist to get that story up and being written the best way possible, it also fits best when social media is in that source because without social media most headlines wouldn’t have come from anything viral or interesting that people like to read or get their minds into.

Many journalists and news outlets are on social media influencing and being influenced by all these trending social media platforms, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snap chat and YouTube. They all fit in the categories of how we engage socially. A journalist today has to be multi-skilled and versatile to adapt and reach younger audiences because they are the most who are attracting such platforms and that’s how people get their news by being notified on their phones or through a trusted digital newspaper subscriber.

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