Internet Journalism

Journalism is an area of interest that I have and a field that I may possibly enter in the future as a starting career. It is exciting to me because I love to write and enjoy new experiences. Although I don’t think that the internet will change the face of journalism wholesale, I do acknowledge that it has a dramatic effect on the trend that will follow as a result of this.
The internet has brought about this new thing called citizen journalism. What this means is that anyone can become a self-proclaimed journalist in their own right on the internet. The nature of the internet makes this so because anybody can write anything they want and put it on the web. The implications this has for professional journalism are abundant. Whatever is written and posted on the internet now comes under much scrutiny with respect to credibility. Internet users are not naive and wary of opinion based writings that claim to be factual and based on truth. The widespread array of unreliable sources on the internet has led to a loss of credibility and skepticism which has affected professional journalism, which, I might add, has not had a terrific reputation to begin with, especially in America.

Citizen journalism also challenges professional journalism in the sense that now, the airing of opinions to the public is no longer confined to those who practice journalism as a profession. Now everybody can share their thoughts and views with a large audience. This affects society socially in an extremely complex manner. To put it simply, discerning what to believe is becoming more and more difficult. I know that that may be a good thing, because it is more democratic, and people would not be brainwashed so easily by a few large organizations, be it government agencies or religious institutions. However, by the same token, the web is now characterized by an overload of information. It has gone to the other extreme now.