Do You See The Internet as A Threat or an Opportunity for Journalists?
Just a few clicks on the mouse and a whole world of information is available for free. The internet, whilst largely contributing to declining newspaper sales, can at least provide a huge resource for a journalist.
The internet has created opportunities and resulted in journalists' regularly multi-tasking.
Today, journalists might be blogging, reporting live on a webcam, filming video footage and writing online content for a website, utilizing a social networking site, facilitating online debates as well as tweeting.
Making use of the internet allows a journalist to bypass certain legal restrictions imposed on the print and broadcasting media. It could help a journalist bring a powerful story to life.
A recent story about the war in Afghanistan was outed by journalists releasing sensitive confidential information from the US government on the internet, using their website called Wikileaks.
It allowed all journalists across the world to comment on unreported civilian casualties and death tolls being a lot higher.
An eyewitness account of an event, a passer-by, taking video footage on their mobile phone, could then be beamed across the world, making a local incident global.
A personal account could also help authenticate a story. A lot of reports on the protests in Iran against the re-election of the president were uploaded onto the internet by witnesses via their mobile phones with the footage being internationally reported and broadcast.
Meanwhile, Iran censored all reports of the protests on the internet and their national media.
The internet can enrich, create opportunities and add value to a journalist by allowing the reporting of difficult and untimely truths about our world.
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