Paul Shapiro

Editor, student magazine.

yes

Only a few years ago, it was inconceivable that a reputable journalist, at a top publication would be able to publish anything on the internet without the permission of their editor. Now the majority of journalists are communicating via social media and they need to or else they could get left behind. The changing face of traditional journalism with the advent of the Internet had been a slow and gradual one. Traditional newspapers had never had to change very much except for possibly colour print and larger photographs but the last few years have seen a serious surge in the use of digital journalism. This is due to three major developments. Firstly Goliath social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are making it a lot easier to get information across to more people than ever, faster than ever. The second major development is the actual devices people are getting their information from. Smartphones and tablets seemed to rise as fast as the social media sites. While the PC and even the laptop were not considerably damaging to the future of the print newspaper, the smartphone and tablet are as they provide real-time news that is updated every second. Unfortunately, for the tech savvy news consumer, yesterday’s news may have as well have been last month’s news, as that person gets their news almost the minute it breaks. Thirdly the equipment available to reporters makes it easier to break news as it happens. Not so long ago a journalist would have to go along to say a rally out the front of the state library and to get the story out they would need possibly recording equipment, video equipment, people to handle this equipment and possibly a photographer, then they would go back to the office write the story and then see it the next day in the newspaper. These days all the need is a smartphone, perhaps an Android or iPhone, an internet connection and bang the stories complete with video, sound and images. So the pressure is on today’s journalist to get their story out and heard, and to do this they must embrace change and digital journalism. Don’t get me wrong, personally I love reading the newspaper, I’m from a generation that can enjoy the best of the digital and non-digital world and I think there will always be a place for print journalism with feature-writing but I believe in the future the majority medium for journalism will be digital. In saying that there is at least one major problem the journalism industry in Australia and around the world has to figure out and that is how to turn digital journalism into an economically viable business model. Advertising has been a major part of journalism since day dot. And advertisers don’t care about news or journalism they only care about more people reading their message and buying their products. This is the way of the world. News outlets can not only rely on subscriptions to be viable they need the advertising dollar as well. With declining print sales and higher digital subscriptions hopefully he advertising will eventually start to flow through and bring the industry back to its strongest days. I believe the future of journalism will be its best not only because it wants to be its best, It has to be its best. Change will continue to happen and five years from now who knows what form digital journalism will take. For today’s journalists and the hopefuls like myself who hope to forge a career in the media they must understand they are entering an environment where the ground is constantly shifting under their feet but they have to adapt to survive.