Nowadays the internet has taken over and as a journalism student; I have been subjected to the evolution of news available online through assignments and practicals. I hardly read newspapers or magazines. When I need to find out about the latest news, I go straight to the internet and sometimes the news channels on DSTV because it is the quickest, cheapest and most efficient form.
Although web journalism is taking the world by storm, I’m not so sure if it will entirely take over traditional media. As everyone in the profession knows, advertising placed in newspapers is what funds the publications and keeps them running. If online was to take over from traditional media, how would the journalists contributing to the online sector and the rest of the team stay afloat financially? Will journalists as a career choice die out and will citizen journalism take over? How reliable is that?
Although online journalism is winning the media race by far, I personally believe that the other traditional forms of media will not disappear for a long time. Newspapers for example, there has to be an efficient amount of the population who still purchase newspapers for the publications to keep running, most of our country does not have a computer, let alone internet access and they turn to the other publications for their news intake. Along with no computer/internet access, a large percentage of our population is unfortunately uneducated and they turn to the radio and/or the television to stay up to date with what is happening in our country, especially for events such as government elections, strikes and weather.Without the other traditional forms of media, the news would not be distributed as it should and with the state our country is in, I think it vitally important that South Africans keep up to date with what is happening around them, whether it is online, radio, print or television. Online just happens to be easier to access at any time as well as efficient for journalists with breaking news.
I also think that traditional media is more reliable than certain aspects of online journalism. Although certain publications online are proper news publications and are up to date with the daily news, citizen journalism and blogging cannot be entirely reliable. It is a great form of opinion and additional information that the other publications might not have covered, but I personally wouldn’t solely rely on these forms because they are not monitored or under control of editors or qualified journalists. No matter which form of media people use to find out what is happening around them and abroad, online seems to be the biggest and better form presently due to technology and the internet growing every day. I still believe the other forms are just as important as online is and I don’t think these forms will disappear from the competition market just yet. Maybe in the next ten years or so we will start to see everyone swaying more to online journalism than to the others if most of the population has the access to a computer and the internet. Until then, traditional media, in my opinion, is just as important as online media.
Written by Gemma-Louise Wright, edited by Michaela Anderson (Web Journalism lecturer)
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