JN 229 Entry #6: “The Crisis of Journalism and the Internet”

    Upon reading this article, my first question was what exactly is the crisis of journalism and the Internet? Robert McChesney describes it by stating, "The corruption of journalism, the decline of investigative reporting, the degeneration of political reporting and international journalism, the absurd horserace coverage of campaigns, the collapse of local journalism, the increasing prevalence of celebrity and scandal are now roundly acknowledged by all but the owners of large media firms and their hired guns" (McChesney 54).

Now, upon reading this one may ask, as I did, how did this crisis start? McChesney states, "The real concern is what accounts for the present crisis. In much of conventional parlance, the crisis is due primarily to the Internet providing competition to the dominant commercial news media and draining resources from the traditional journalism" (McChesney 55).

Okay, so we're back to one of the ideas that we've been discovering for the duration of this class: the internet as a negative contributor to the journalistic world. I've been thinking about this concept for a very long time and I have yet to come to my own conclusion. So far, I am able to see and understand both sides of the argument.

From a professional point of view, I can see how the internet is having a negative impact on journalism. Like citizen journalism, the internet has made it incredibly easy for just about anybody to post things online. More and more people are tuning into the internet when they want to know what is going on in the world. Similarly, more and more news organizations are producing news online. This is affecting journalism as less and less people read newspapers and magazines. The newspaper industry is decreasing in size due to this new internet craze.

However, from a personal point of view, I love the internet. I admit to tuning in to the internet on a regular basis to hear the news. As a university student living away from home, I don't get a newspaper delivered to my house and I find that I don't have time to sit down and watch the news. My schedule is so busy that it has become easier to just go on the internet to check things out if I want to know what's going on in the world.

    I can see the negative and the positive effects that the internet has had on journalism. Personally I love the internet, but as a student who wants to work in print journalism, I am aware that the internet is slowly taking away those jobs, making my future less definite.