By now, it's clear that the new digital news environment has created opportunities that were otherwise not available to "normal" people. We are able to do things that, with the legacy system of journalism, we could never do before.
In the lecture notes for this week, Dr. Tracy discusses coverage of the London subway bombings of 2005. Survivors of this horrific event took video from their cell phones, and the clips were almost instantly broadcast to audiences around the globe giving them an up close and personal view of the tragic incident while remaining safely in the comfort of their own living room. This does not necessarily make the survivors of the bombings "journalists," however, it does prove just how advanced journalistic practices are becoming.
For now, we still have our regular newspapers, however few there may be left, which are still reporting the daily happenings of local communities and the major events affecting the global community. These newspapers still have reporters who go out and report on the news, editors who still edit the news and publishers who still publish the news -- these practices haven't changed... yet. Despite this, many people still feel that print journalism is dying, and whether that may or may not be true, there are emergent practices that are revolutionizing journalism.
Many of my classmates have discussed YouTube in their posts, and I feel that I must jump on that bandwagon. YouTube, specifically, hasn't revolutionized journalism, but the idea of including video clips in news articles or blogs, becoming an Internet celebrity or posting video coverage of a particularly important event were never even considered until recent years. Now, reporters of online news articles can include video clips to enhance their story or expand on the issue at hand. Many news organizations also use Twitter as a way of reporting before the full story is actually complete. At emyou! The Magazine where I work, we have talked about encouraging writers to create a Twitter account so that we can quickly and conveniently post updates about potential stories, then report on them later. This journalistic practice is completely new and is actually quite beneficial. It allows time for reporters, after posting a quick 140 character or less blurb about a lead, to keep audiences updated while still getting the full and complete story and reporting on it later.
What's important is that newspapers and practices that are still relevant today, with their online versions, are adopting the new technologies giving readers the best of both worlds: those who prefer to read print can still do so, and those who prefer to read online versions with links and video clips can do so.
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