As a teenager in the 1970s, all I ever wanted to be was a newspaper journalist, like my great uncle. Lucky for me, I got that wish granted early in my career. Today, the media industry, print in particular, is littered with victims of the economy and the new economy being transformed by the Internet, bloggers and so-called "IReporters".
Every day I read about another round of layoffs and buyouts in the newspaper industry and it now seems clear that these jobs are never coming back even when the economy does.
What are journalism professors telling their students these days? It's no longer "work hard and you'll get a job at a major metropolitan newspaper fighting for truth, justice and the American way." (OK, I loved the Clark Kent character and Superman).
We're in a new information age and it's still unclear how this will influence public opinion on many critical issues of the day. While we have more access to information than ever before, we can't always be sure that what we are reading is fact or fiction or something in between. We can longer rely on the daily newspaper to get "all the news that's fit to print" just as we can no longer rely on the evening news to take us on in-depth photographic journeys to other continents that explain how people and governments live and work.
I love sites like Twitter and Facebook for some doses of my news appetite just like the many news sites and blogs that keep me informed 24/7. I like being able to customize my news with wire services, dailies, trade publications and blogs. But it's also a lot more work to stay on top of the deluge of information.
The loss of so many talented and veteran beat reporters to the economy, many who spent decades plying their trade, is a loss for all of us who want to better understand the complex issues we all face in our local communities, nationally and internationally.
Yes, the Internet has made the world smaller and allowed information to reach us all faster. We should be better informed than any generation in history. I can only hope that today's Twitterers, bloggers, podcasters, citizen reporters and Facebook commentators take some lessons from the great traditions of journalism.
From the early days of journalism, being objective and getting to the truth were the pillars of the profession. As we entered the 20th Century, most people had only one media outlet they depended on for the "facts" -- usually their daily newspaper, and later, the radio and the evening news. Walter Cronkite, for example, was one of the most trusted people in America. And you had to be one heckuva reporter and writer to make it to a major daily newspaper. Journalism was glamerous and exciting and we've seen that in Hollywood's portrayals of newspaper people.
The world has changed dramatically from those romantic days of Citizen Kane through All the President's Men. Like millions of others, I'm enjoying the technology and access to all the information that fits onto my computer screen and hard drive.
Today, we combine information from multiple sources and assess what's truth and what's fiction. We've mastered quantity of information. I'm just hoping we all stay committed to quality information.
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