Newspapers vs. Blogs

As a Brit, I can't help but notice that there are many American trends that seem to make their way across the pond and begin to influence our culture; films (or movies!), music, fashion, the list is endless. And I'm beginning to worry that their trends in journalism will start to develop over here as well.

The reason that this bothers me is because it's recently been found that a quarter of American newspaper journalists plan to quit their jobs! Roy Greenslade points this out on the Guardian's blog, saying that among the biggest reasons for this were "low salaries, long and undesirable hours, and stress".

But I've got a suspicion that there's more to it than that. They are, after all, newspaper journalists, and it appears that this aspect of journalism is suffering somewhat, following consumers' increasing use of the Internet as their source of news rather than more traditional print formats.

This argument could be developed further to consider that in fact, blogs are one of the best sources of news, particularly when information is required frequent and fast.

Robert Niles supports this, claiming that: "The blog is the ideal format to deliver information in a breaking news situation. There's no reason to continue relying on traditional newspaper narrative formats online when editors could better serve their readers with the far more online-friendly blog format".

This suggests that newspapers are no longer the preferred way of accessing news. But Mindy McAdams has come up with a list of situations when print editions work for her. These include when she is on a long train journey, or when newspapers are delivered to her in hotel rooms. In other words, when she has no other choice!

So maybe the print editions which do work best are the free press; the ones that people don't have to choose or seek, but that just appear at their doorstep for them to leisurely browse through when the adverts come on the TV.

McAdams would probably consider this a worthy argument, as she concluded that "In my current lifestyle, the printed newspaper just does not fit".

Finally, I'd like to take a look at a survey used on Kaye Sweetster's blog. She regularly uses her blog to discuss advancements in the journalism industry, and considers how journalists can make the most out of online resources.

Here, she mentions a survey which revealed that 54% of business journalists interviewed admitted to using blogs for story ideas, and that 72% were using blogs "with varying attributions".

Surprisingly, only 2% said they "would never report on stories starting from a blog", which goes back to Niles's argument that blogs are perhaps the best source of information, for consumers and journalists alike!

If you can't beat them; join them!

Singer Madonna has announced that she will release her next album via mobile phones, after previously refusing to allow iTunes to release her music.

This suggests that she's beginning to understand the importance of the digital world to the success of her career, and that ideas which she previously avoided, such as allowing consumers to download her material, are actually the most affective way of making her money nowadays.

So this led me to think about the future of journalism, how digital developments are vastly affecting this industry, and what changes journalists must make in order to sustain their careers.

Mindy McAdams discusses these musings in what she refers to as the "iPod moment for newspapers", where she argues that "what happened to the music business, will happen to the news business".

She takes these ideas from Charles Arthur, who says that: "as the music industry has seen the destruction of the album ... now people just go for tracks. I think that in the same way, newspapers will find themselves driven down towards “the article” — as happens already online."

Roy Greenslade, The Guardian's online Blogger, believes that print journalism is dying as a result of new online communities, and says that print journalists need to recognise how to use this online medium to their advantage, rather than allowing it to push newspapers aside for good.

He says: "Unless traditional newspaper publishers can find a way of securing substantial online revenue streams, by attracting sufficient eyeballs for their editorial content, there is no future for them. That's the challenge."

And I agree. It seems to me that print journalists need to embrace this developing industry of online journalism, because it is happening, and it is affecting the ways in which people access their news. There is no way of preventing it, so if you can't beat them; join them!

A good example of using the online medium to its full potential can be seen on MTV's website, where a news story about "American Idol" offers much more than just the article in text format. In the middle of the text is a video, showing the TV performance that the article is referring to, and there is also a list of "related videos" and photographs.

Links within the text take users to other news stories on the website, as well as giving them the option to look at the MTV "newsroom blog", which users can become more involved in. Comments about the story are added at the end, showing that users like the idea of interactivity.

But Robert Niles has a slightly different approach. Although he agrees that online journalism is becoming an ever influential factor, ("discussion communities, blogs, wikis and other websites are drawing readers' attention from old media information sources"), he's noticeably more positive about it than Greenslade appears to be.

Niles believes that tutors of journalism should take a more active role in teaching their students about the new ways of presenting news, but says that "teaching them how to report, write, edit and produce news stories, even in multiple media, is not enough", because students need to learn how to compete within the journalism industry.

He bases his discussion around the idea that students will be more productive if they are encouraged to write about something which they are passionate about, and to learn how to maintain that passion throughout their writing and their journalistic lives.

While this may be a good starting point, it doesn't really adhere to his concept of competition, as it's my understanding that to get my foot through the journalism door, I'm going to have to write about things that I'm certainly not passionate about, or even totally bored by, from time to time.

But I suppose that if Niles can teach his students to appreciate the sheer joy that can be obtained from journalistic writing, then hopefully they will be able to put a more interesting spin on a somewhat dull story in the future.

Only time will tell...

Using Blogging to its full potential?

This week, I intended to write about the final of ITV's Dancing on Ice competition, which was won by ex Hearsay member, Suzanne Shaw. However, as I was sifting through the blogs to see if anyone was surprised/happy that she's won, I came across a number of blogs devoted to celebrities'.....babies!

Blogs such as "Celebs and Bubs" , and the "Celebrity Baby Blog" really do prove that people can blog about anything, and that a phenomenon which started out as a way to engage users into commenting on news, has now become more of a way for people to just generally gossip about things that most people (such as myself), consider unimportant, and equally uninteresting!

Kaye Sweetser's Blog regularly talks about the different advantages of online journalism, blogging in particular, and how the digital newsroom is vastly affecting the way that people perceieve and use journalism.

So I wonder why it is then, when people are given the opportuinity to use their skills and voice their opinions to achieve positive outcomes, that people think it's OK to use up Internet space to talk about celebrities' babies, who may be cute, but haven't really done anything worthwhile discussing, have they?

Sweetster mentions Joshua Micah Marshall, who recently won an award for his investigative journalism as a result of using Blogging as a way to encourage his readers to report on the US Attorney firing scandal. Now that is using blogging to it's full potential!

(Although, included in his profile is a photograph of him holding a baby, so I guess if he thinks it's OK to focus on babies just as much as the celebrity themselves, then maybe it is. He is, after all, an award winning Blogger!)