No stops on the digital media train

Journalism has always been an industry based upon speed and whose results are always measured upon time and quality. Journalists throughout time have strived to be the first news-bearer, be it 200 years ago where the first people to report the news by word of mouth in the streets could be classed as the so called ‘journalists’ or be it 50 years ago where the first reporter to bring back the story and have it published would be successful.

It is therefore an industry in which timing is as important as quality of a story itself as is seen in many news rooms across the world where huge, important stories may be left out of a newspaper and be favoured by small, un-newsworthy articles based on the fact that the story was written and processed in time for print.

In terms of technology, as this has improved infinitely throughout the last fifty years, it has only helped journalists become quicker and more efficient in their work, and has meant that news is now dieing quicker than ever.



A big story say 30 years ago may have been newsworthy for a long time but this newsworthiness is starting to die out quicker than ever and in some cases stories are becoming un-newsworthy in a matter of hours. New stories are reported and received by newsrooms much quicker these days and the so to speak ‘shelf life’ of stories are hence far shorter as in the past a story would stay in news for a long time until another story had been written or reported upon say the next day.

It is stupid to say that journalism will not improve or become quicker as such. Technology is ever changing and improving and as long as the world can do things quicker and more easily, this will only make the lives of journalists much quicker too. The technological train has been on the move for a long time and I don’t expect it to be making a stop anytime soon.

Click here to read more

Blink, and you might miss that flash

The specific area of photojournalism has been aided bounds and leaps with the new digital era.



For a journalist to get his/her photographs to the news room for print would have taken perhaps an hour or two in the past and say 30 years ago pre-digital photography era, there would have been an immense lag time in which the photos would need to be developed. However, in the present era, journalists/photographers have a wide range of media at their disposal shredding processing times to bits.

In particular, the digital camera has been more than a saviour for journalism as a whole.
Its history began in the 1960’s when the U.S. space program began enhancing images transmitted back to earth from unmanned probes. The 70’s saw the possibility of converting light into digital images, while the first electric photograph was taken in 1979 at the bottom of the ocean in a miniature submarine for National Geographic. In 1981 Sony launched its new Mavica non-film electronic camera and the technology flourished from then on with most households now owning a digital camera.

Click this link to find out more about the history of photo-journalism


Its introduction towards the late 80’s and early 90’s has changed the role and working practices of professional journalists as they are now able to supply pictures to the news room in a matter of seconds. A photograph can be taken and within the space of a minute, it can be uploaded onto a laptop and sent via email to the editor. Wi-fi internet access readily available at many public places nowadays has also cut times in half, meaning journalists do no have to go to libraries or news rooms to upload images; they could do it at a local Starbucks for all they like. This has revolutionised the way journalists work, with the same results being seen in different forms of media.



The mobile phone is now a tool with which journalists can not only write stories and send them to the news room, but they can also take high quality images on their mobile phones and upload them within seconds. This was the case in the London 7/7. bombings in 2005, as shown by this article. The mobile phone also allows anyone to in essence become a journalism - including students.

The same issue can be digested in terms of sharing media. Nowadays there is so much technology readily available to any Tom, Dick or Harry and this has seen the introduction of websites such as Flickr where users can upload their own photos and so the world can share and use these pictures without copyright law.

Similarly this has led to the rise of online journalism blogging with free websites such as Blogger where users can share their stories and pictures for free, with some even generating enough views to be made public. The blog's success is shared by City University teacher and technology analyst Bill Thompson in his article for the BBC.

It is plain to see that the camera, as with all forms of digital media are now in full force and the shere speed with which the industry is progressing is slightly scary. In the future, there really may not be any time to blink.

Click here to read more