Monday, October 10, 2011

Can web journalism replace traditional media

Personally I not only think it can but I think it will.
In this century people are living a fast paced life and traditional media is not fast enough to keep up with that pace. The traditional slumps behind the web journalism. By the time a newspaper hit the stands with news of something that had happened bloggers and people on facebook and twitter had already spread the news to all the internet users.
According to about.com.journalism-With print journalism seemingly on the brink of collapse, more and more are asking whether web journalism can replace newspapers. The short answer is, not yet. Web journalism encompasses a whole range of things, from the websites run by newspapers to citizen journalism and non-profit news sites and even blogs. But aside from the newspaper websites, which are an extension of the papers themselves, few of these other online news entities can compete with newspapers in terms of the breadth and scope of their coverage.
The Problem That web journalism has at this time and the reason it haven’t made traditional journalism fade away is money. Most online news sites don't have enough money from either advertising or deep-pocketed supporters to hire a newsroom full of professional reporters. So they often rely on recent journalism school grads or interns who will work for cheap, and they typically employ fairly small staffs. Even with limited resources and inexperienced reporters, these sites can do good work. The Chitown Daily News, for instance, provides solid basic coverage of municipal agencies in Chicago.
But with only four full-time reporters, it can't hope to compete with the kind of full-bodied news coverage provided by the city's two main dailies, the Tribune and the Sun-Times.Likewise, when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently shut down its printing presses and became a web-only operation, some hoped the P-I website would carry on the paper's proud journalistic tradition. But with the P-I's news staff being gutted to a fraction of its former size, that seems unlikely. Some topnotch journalism is being done by nonprofit news websites, which are typically funded by a mix of ad revenue and contributions from donors and foundations. VoiceofSanDiego.org, for example, has has earned a rep for hard-hitting investigative projects about corrupt local officials. But the nonprofit sites also have fairly small staffs and must pick their targets carefully. They simply don't have the resources to do more. Still, in a time when newspapers look like an endangered species, online news sites seem to be multiplying. And if they can discover a way to make money - the kind of money that will allow them to fill newsrooms with experienced reporters and editors - they may eventually become journalism's brave new world.

According to Mr. John Van der Westerhuizen who is the founder and current editor of our local newspaper in Namaqualand thinks that in time web will completely take over and there will be no more traditional media. People will stop buying newspapers and just get their news from the web.

According to Sandy it will because it’s becoming more and more popular and the world is getting smaller due to web journalism.
Sibulele on the other hand thinks it will not replace traditional media. They are different. The net is a great way to find stories and sources for stories. The print will not go extinct because of it. Yes, more people read their news online than buy a newspaper but the id more quality and depth in traditional Journalism than Web.

So my conclusion is that depending on the people in the world and what they want web journalism could either kill traditional media or it could just improve it.
It all depends on the demand of the consumers.


SOURCES:
Sibulele Sikune
Sandisiwe Sishuba
about.com.journalism




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