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.