News War

After viewing part III of Frontline's "News War," I have come to the conclusion that the news and media will continue to change, and what the future holds is unpredictable. I found the documentary to be extremely interesting and very relevant to my future. One of the interesting points that was highlighted is the content of the news that runs for audiences. Today news seems to be more and more consumer-driven. Information is not shown unless it's what the public wants.

What i also found interesting was the shift in cable in the year 2000. The documentary says that with the large corporations buying news organizations, the audience base became different. After the precedent of 60 minutes, it was now important for news organizations to make money. As a result of this viewership began changing. It was no longer important to attract as many viewers as possible. With the creation of opinion shows, news organization focused on narrowing their viewers. This has drastically limited the amount of investigative reporting. I feel this decline is doing a great disservice to the public. The sense of public service that journalism provided seems to be dwindling.

It was interesting to see how the internet has affected the journalism profession. Blogging websites provide a forum for people to post their opinions. Citizen journalism is a great way to get different points of view and sides of story, but there definitely needs to be a clear line between the profession, and outlets such as the blogosphere. Journalists are professionally trained to find stories and report on issues that benefit the general public. Like Nicholas Lemann said, citizen journalism isn't reporting on new information. Journalism is a profession, it doesn't just equal a suit and tie. Individuals are trained on how to deliver the news. I think it's great that people are able to report on issues, and it's a great way to incorporate the internet, but the line needs to be clear between journalism and citizen journalism.