In order to predict what the future of digital journalism looks like it is first important to know what digital journalism is now.
According to Student World Online, there is no one definition to digital journalism but at its most basic it is any journalistic content posted on the internet.
http://www.studentworldonline.com/article/what-is-digital-journalism-and-why-does-it-matter-/317/
This new age of journalism has quickly taken off and as time continues to go on our world will shift more and more towards digital journalism.
With journalism moving to the internet it has allowed for just about anyone to become a “journalist”.
Though this might seem like a bad thing, it certainly has its benefits for the world as well.
The negatives are known. Anyone being able to post anything can lead to a lot of fake news being spread as well as taking the credit away from the real journalists.
However, letting everyone have a platform can allow news to move so much faster.
People are able to do their own reporting and their own investigating and could break stories or information that might have not even been considered before.
Sometimes though, speed is bad because it leads to inaccurate information being sent out that can be severely damaging.
Take the Kobe Bryant crash for example.
TMZ was there to leak the information before the cops could even inform the Bryant family.
Not only that but they, along with other organizations, kept leaking wrong information about who was actually involved.
This is the issue with digital journalism being accessible to almost anyone, wrong information can be spread too quickly.
How Digital Journalism is Changing the World
With digital journalism becoming more and more prominent in everyday life it is bringing a change to a system that has been around for a very long time.
Print newspapers are dying at a rapid pace and it is due to the ability for everyone to be able to access their content online. There is no longer a need to buy a paper copy.
Tony Rodgers for thoughtco.com highlighted how TV already began to influence the relevance of newspapers.
He then goes on to say that the Internet will ultimately be the “nail in the coffin” for print news.
https://www.thoughtco.com/are-newspapers-dying-2074122
News organizations have been the most affected by the shift to digital journalism.
Obviously with the print newspapers dying out the organizations are losing a large source of income.
However, despite having online sites this is still not bringing in enough revenue for the majority of news organizations to stay in business.
A strategy that several news organizations have gone to is putting up pay walls on their sites.
This will force the people in search of news to buy a subscription to be able to see more of if not all of the article on the site.
However this only goes so far as not every news site is pay-to-view so people are just searching around for the free sites and not buying subscriptions.
What this means for News Organizations
With so many of the larger news organizations failing to make enough money in time they will all eventually close down.
So where does that leave print media?
A writer for the Monticello News explains that the remainder of print media will be found in smaller, local newspapers.
http://themonticellonews.com/the-future-of-print-media-p9682-120.htm
It is highlighted in the article that the major news organizations do not really care for local news.
The reason that the local papers will still be able to succeed, or at least stay afloat, is because the local newspapers are more personalized.
The smaller papers still produce big news that is going on in the community, they still highlight marriages and deaths.
With the news in the smaller papers being more closely oriented with the people in the community it will allow for readers to keep wanting to get the papers.
What is the Future?
A writer for digitalalberta.com highlights the awareness of the dying industry that is journalism.
http://themonticellonews.com/the-future-of-print-media-p9682-120.htm
Given that most newspaper organizations are in financial trouble and likely headed for closure eventually it leaves a lot of questions.
The biggest question is what is going to happen with all of the journalists that are going to be out of a job.
My personal opinion is that one day in the not too distant future digital journalism will all but fully take over the industry.
Obviously there still needs to be journalists reporting information but with them not having any ties to an organization due to closure what will that look like?
I think that our news will basically be coming from free lance journalists rather than from organizations.
The next big question that gets brought up with that theory is how is anyone supposed to get paid and make a career out of it?
This was a question that I am not sure has a definitive answer to.
However if I had to guess I can see it being something along the lines of how youtubers make their money.
These journalists that are getting the news out to the world will get paid on a per view basis.
Despite this being my thoughts about what digital journalism will be like, I think that this is very flawed.
I think that if this were to happen it will essentially be a free for all for the world and it will be much more difficult to decipher good from bad and real from fake news.
Given that this plan is extremely flawed and does not seem hopeful for success, the main goal is to keep the news organizations alive.
Obviously they will not be able to stay around if they are not making money but there still needs to be some type of order in the industry if it is going to succeed.
In conclusion, my future of digital journalism could turn into a very big disaster if we continue down the road that we are going with news organizations closing down.
In order to create a better future it is important to keep some type of order around for the industry.
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