News Papers are Getting Shafted!!!!
many newspapers are not being read and the internet is taking over
Over the past decade the decline in print journalism has been sad I must say. I remember waking up every Sunday morning to read the sports section and get as much information as i could from the print. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was my newspaper of choice and still remains that way to this day. The only difference with today's world is that the Internet has taken over the mainstream news media, and it is much easier and more simple to just go online for the news. I have tried to fight off this mainstream idea of news from the Internet, but have found it hard to maintain reading the newspaper with all that is out there.
Since i was younger I've always aspired to be a sports writer so when the newspaper came every Sunday i wanted to read all of the sports articles. Over time though and especially since coming to college, i have found the Internet to be my main source of sporting news. I have to say that i like what the Internet has to offer to a certain point. Its very easy to go from one link to another to get information on an team, athlete or just a story. The site that i use the most is ESPN because they provide the most creditable sources.
Although i enjoy what the internet has to offer and i do like it, its not the same as the paper. I always felt that the articles written by the sports writers of Milwaukee were much better and more informational about the teams that i love and root for. When reading Internet stories i don't feel like i get as much information as i would from the newspaper. I love the originality and hometown feeling of the newspaper that i don't think that Internet will ever have the same feel.
I don't think that the transformation from print to Internet will have a huge effect on our democracy, but I'm not necessarily looking forward to it. I think that people have become to dependent on technology in general and i think this just Ad's to it. So in other terms i do think that socially this will have an effect on our democracy in a way. The print newspaper has been around for a lot of years and still to this day supplies the most complex and intelligent news. I'm not trying to say that we can't live without newspapers, I just don't see the need to get rid of them anytime soon.
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I agree with your post. It is very true that many print newspapers had better information and better sources. They seem to just put more work into their article and really engage with their sources better. While they all use sources it seems that the print papers use them better and contain more source info.
ReplyDeleteSilverblatt discusses the use of sources in his text. He discusses using sources to create stories. I am not saying that the online sources don't but you are right in saying that the print papers seem to connect better with their sources. I do agree that it is easier to access news stories in the internet though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism_sourcing also discusses uses sources well.
I don't necessarily agree with you when you say that it will not affect our democracy much though. I personally believe that because people will not be reading many in-depth stories like those in print papers. Therefore people will not be as involved in our government and then less democratic. I believe the lack of deep stories on the internet are detrimental. People don't get all that they need from the online stories.
I really like your post for the fact that you touch on how print newspapers have better sources. I agree 100% with you here. Online news sources tend to lack evidence of credibility unlike print newpapers. According to Silverblatt, "Sources are expected to provide analysis, clarification, or background on a subject in which they have a particular expertise. Instead, sources sometimes give opinions on a wide range of topics outside their are of specialty."
ReplyDeleteOnline news sources are notorious for doing this. Whenever I see a story with an anonymous author, right away I think its not a reliable source. However, there are some online newspapers that I do find to be very credible like http://www.nytimes.com/. Whenever I read stories on nytimes.com I feel the journalist is credible. Many journalist on the nytimes website are known journalist, therefore thought to be credible.
One thing I don't agree with your post, is that you said, "I don't think that the transformation from print to Internet will have a huge effect on our democracy." I feel completely opposite about this. The transformation is already having its effect on thousands of journalist. It's putting many people out of work. This soley affects our democracy. Personally I feel that the transformation is inevitable, but it comes with many cost attached to it.