I purchased a newspaper a few days ago and learned I only had to pay a dollar fifty for it. I was extremely shocked by this because I always thought it would cost more to purchase the paper. That moment made me realize I never purchased a newspaper before that day. I simply went online to read the news or used one of the many apps on my phone to find out what was going on globally.
I believe my generation has really set the tone for the change in the way we receive our news.
In an article titled "How Social Media has Changed Journalism for an Entire Generation" by Ben Jacobs for Daily Download it focuses on how the way people receive news has changed. It challenges’ if these new changes allow the public to get a real sense for the news or if it’s just way to get the news out to the world. For example he writes about how at a point in time journalists would compete to have the best story, how their goals were to win a Pulitzer prize but nowadays with blogs people just want to be the first to get the information out there. They aren’t acting like real journalists who hold themselves to high standards.
“In the past, people had to at least shuffle through the entire newspaper to get the comics, sit through the entire nightly news for the human interest story. Now, the listicle about corgis is right there on Twitter and Facebook, without the need to wade through stories about foreign affairs” he says this in reference to journalist putting news on Twitter or Facebook where people can decide what interests them instead of having to go through an entire newspaper reading each story before they can get to the comics.
Although the way the news is being pushed to the public does not always promise that they will consume some of the important news it still allows many news outlets a chance to get close to their public.
In an article by Carrie Morgan titled "The Impact of Social Media on Newsrooms & Journalists" for Social Media Today she interviews CBS anchor and news reporter Sean Mclaughlin about the changes in the way in which news is delivered to the public.
When asked about how he felt about using social outlets such as Facebook and Twitter he felt like it was such a great platform for the news because it allows professionals a chance to read the responses from the people around the world. It was great way to get feedback and learn what the public wants to learn more about.
“Facebook engages viewers to speak their minds and share with others – that’s huge for us to drive them to watch” says Sean Mclaughlin
I think as technology becomes more advanced and allows us to consume so much at once reading a newspaper to find out the news will become a thing of the past but the quality of the news will not change.