Jason Salas, a newsanchor with KUAM in Guam, writes that newspapers are on their last legs thanks to the rise of blogging and citizen journalism.
Unfortunately, Jason fails to recognize that as vlogging/video publishing gets cheaper, easier and a lot more mobile it will put local TV news at risk as well. Guess he can’t see the forest from trees in Guam.
…The rise in blogging applications and the millions of people flocking to use them, serving as ad hoc reporters, has already blurred the definition of what a traditional professional in our beloved field is. One of the main advantages of being a journalist in years past was that you belonged to a somewhat-elite industry, meaning only that you had to be officially employed as such. Now anyone can just jump in and arguably be legitimate.
A savvy ‘Netizen can analyze and report on the events and major events, say of the Super Bowl or an election or an assassination, and get the word out faster than classical disseminators of data, who’ve got to cover the entire game, run it by editorial staff, enter it in the day’s circulation, and then wait for publishing.
Bloggers just hit ‘SUBMIT’ and wait. And the requisite technical proficiency in being a reporter is also a thing of the past, as most blogging apps can be mastered by a sixth grader with Web access. So, the ease-of-entry into the wonderful world of journalism has also been widely opened. If you have a functioning brain and an opinion, you’re a reporter.”
Read the article here.
Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.
He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.
