After listening to Salon editor-in-chief Joan Walsh last week, I am now more than confident that all journalists will survive the inevitable digital evolution of journalism.
What amazed me about Ms. Walsh’s guest lecture was her focused and straightforward approach to the news: No matter how the story is presented, let the truth be the guiding light. If that mantra isn’t the stuff of great journalists, then I don’t know what is. When she clarified this point by bringing up Salon’s multi-medium approach to news presentation, such as feature articles, photo essays and now blogs, I was amazed at how similar digital journalism is to traditional print journalism.
We CAN go out, report and fact check. We CAN write both long objective pieces and short, personal, opinioned pieces at the same time. Most importantly, lots of people -- both the tech and the news savvy -- will read and enjoy those pieces. Journalism students out there can take a big sigh of relief, because all of your traditional training is not useless. The future of the print newspaper is questionable, but the future of the journalist is far from over.
So, as I finish typing what may be my final post for We Want Media, I look into the future with my head up high. Whether I’m taking notes on a notepad for a story for tomorrow’s front page or using my PDA to transmit my story for immediate web publication, when all is said and done I'm doing the same thing that writers have done for hundreds of years prior: giving the news to the people.
Wei Man Tang @ Wed, 04/26/2006 - 1:07am
It's the same old journalism, just distributed in a new way. There really isn't any reason why traditional, good old fashioned reporting can't be done with the online format, just that it's an issue of acceptance. I don't think it was a matter of whether or not digital journalism can be seen as real journalism like print, it was a matter of when.
We may get a few new things added on to the list of "standard features" with the new medium, but in the end we're still the same old journalists.