The News Industry in Crises
Modern Technology will be putting more and more Journalists out of a Job
Modern Technology will be putting more and more Journalists out of a Job
Stes de Necker
Worldwide, journalism seems to be facing an ever increasing
problem ... the inevitable consequence of
technology and social media.
Major
institutions like The New York Times, The Sun in England and Bild in Germany, are
experiencing financial difficulties, while many others newspapers worldwide, are
forced to cut their budgets to the bare minimum.
Currently there are an estimated 3 billion people around the world
using iPhones or smart phones and as technology just
keeps getting faster, better and cheaper, news gets reported by billions of these
technology users to everywhere in world freely and in seconds!
For decades newspapers were our only source of information and we
all became accustomed to the routine of buying our favorite newspaper every day.
However, with
the advent of modern communication systems and comms. networks, we can now
receive the news on some or other ‘online’ device twenty hours a day for free. It’s no
wonder the news industry are in dire straits.
An even more pervasive problem is that publishers themselves seem
to have lost their way. In many cases journalists have become more interested
in pleasing their employers and colleagues, rather than their readers.
Good news is no longer news and the more controversial the news, the
better.
The product
became the end user.
Today there is no restriction to being a ‘reporter’. Anyone can do
it and everyone is doing it.
This is the content that fills the social media
like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and many others. All supplied by millions of people around
the world, reporting for free all the time.
Since the beginning of the previous century, technology replaced factory
workers with robots. Bank tellers were replaced by ATM machines. IPod’s, YouTube
and a host of other facilities are fast replacing video stores and music shops.
The list just goes on and on.
So where does this leave the professional journalist and the news media?
By feeding live video through modern day advanced
communication networks to anyone online, these new applications may, in the not
so distant future, eliminate the need to tune in to television broadcasters for
the latest news, but to receive it 24/7 on a simple hand held device.
While the social media has
empowered much ‘citizen journalism’ for years, the use of live video reporting could
become a powerful tool for reporters and change the way the news media will
operate in future.
