Online Journalism...Why???

The word on the lips of every modern person over the past ten years or more has been ONLINE. Online music, online TV, online radio, online shopping are all the rage, and so for journalists across the globe, online journalism has also taken off.

With the world ever desperate for instant, up-to-date news, the market for online journalism has just kept growing in order to keep up with the demand.

For this reason it is becoming ever more inportant for journalists not only to be able to write for print versions of newspapers and magazines, but it is becoming more essential for those journalists to have the skills to transfer their stories onto the net.

It is all very well and good for me to tell you how important online journalism is. But what have others said in recent years that also tell us that online journalism should be fully embraced?

In the journal for New Media and Society, Donald Matheson argues that weblogs have developed the relationship between journalist and reader. Deuze and Paulussen in the European Journal of Communication,also say that online journalism has elements of being audience orientated, which is shown by the imortance of interaction between journalist and readers.
A study that was done (http://www.kcnn.org/research/citizen_media_report/) suggested that citizen journalism is becoming an important source of community news for many people.

These few comments alone give us a good idea about what is becoming important to society, interaction with those who are reporting to us. The easiest way to do this is via online journalism and weblogs.

My advice for budding journalists out there is to ditch those newspapers that are rotting away, and get in touch with your technological side...

and my advice for all those journalists who are still living in the 50's, just take one step at a time...out the door, you wont be of much use anymore!