Journalism Response

Yesterday’s class discussion was really interesting. When I started this program, I was thinking maybe journalism was a direction I wanted to go in. Even though I’m leaning more towards the advertising route, I still wish there was a brighter future for the journalism industry.

During class, as a group we discussed my first question about the writing style of the industry and how that’s being affected by citizen journalism. It’s definitely changed over the years and a lot of that has to do with the rise of the blogger. People are more interested in reading information that is simple, straightforward and, on occasion, with a little humor to make it interesting. Since this is the type of writing most people are reading online, newspapers have adjusted (to a certain degree of course). There still needs to be a level of professionalism for the organization to uphold credibility.

This isn’t related to any of my questions, but something Nicole brought up in class is really interesting and I think could use more discussion. We talked about the information gap and how people (and by people, we’re talking about people with means) have the ability to create content and allow their voices to be heard. But this widens the gap even more for people without the opportunity to sit in front a laptop or computer and communicate their thoughts, opinions, etc. Is there ever going to be a way to level the playing field? I don’t think we’ll fully realize the massive impacts of the information/technology gap on this generation for decades. Middle class kids are writing blogs and tweeting. Kids without computers aren’t. There’s an undeniable disadvantage in how some groups receive information (especially with news sources moving online). I mean, there are enough kids on the free and reduced priced lunch program in Charlotte and it’s 7 surrounding counties to fill every seat in the Bank of America stadium where the Panthers play. If they’re household income qualifies them for free lunch, what are the chances they have a computer at home? What happens when these 98,000 kids want to make their voices heard? How do they?