BBC sees end of fortress journalism, with Web 2.0 eroding its space

[v9designbuild]

The internet, it seems, has many in the mainstream media worried. Our job as SEMs used to be about discovering sites that would allow us a link, together with registering sites with a vast directory base. This is the case no more.

We now have to be journalists of a sort, providing quality copy and headlines in press releases, articles and blogging. Not that we can ever compete with mainstream journalists in producing glowing and innovative copy, but nevertheless the effect of Web 2.0 has led the BBC to write "The End of Fortress Journalism" (see BBC - The Editors).

In this document they are saying that their "world is rapidly being eroded". They add: "Each week brings news of redundancies and closures. The legacy costs of buildings, printing presses, studios and all the other structural supports of the fortress are proving too costly for the revenues that can now be generated."

Users can now pick and choose from various selected sources via RSS feeds (e.g. the BBC for news, the Guardian for environmental issues and the FT for financial news) but are we, as SEM professionals who have to work with Web 2.0, helping to erode the space of the professional journalist?

If so, is it a good idea for news per se to continue to adopt the amateur journalist who blogs and tweets and forms opinions at the expense of the professional?

 

[bigcat1967]

It is what it is. Newspapers and the old media is falling apart and going bankrupt.

No - it isn't good for the news to adopt the amateur journalist who blogs - they have to remain professionals...after all, a good bit of ppl still follow the traditional news.

 

[v9designbuild]

Nobody can define the twenty-first century concept of news

If you are interested in this topic, as bloggers really should be, check out http://www.charliebeckett.org/?p=1560.

Extracts: 1) "We are going to lose more than just traditional news organisations. We are going to lose more than just traditional news practices. We are going to gain a whole new way of making news. We are in the process of reinventing the idea of what news is itself. That weird formulaic culture that was 20th century mass media western journalism may be at an end. And as an end, it is also a beginning. This is Rantanen?s fascinating conclusion which I will now use to make mine: ?Considering the historical trajectory of news from news hawkers in the Middle Ages to bloggers in the Information Age, it is possible to argue that we are now witnessing the death of ?modern news?, as conceived in the nineteenth century. In this
situation of multiple change, serious thought is required about what consitutes news. Everybody thinks they know what news is, but in fact nobody can define the twenty-first century concept of news. The boundaries are again becoming blurred. News may again become just new stories?
(Rantanen 2009)

2) So just when we thought we had got used to Web 2.0 here comes the next leap forwards, although it is about the uses of existing rather than new technology. It is social networking. Facebook is not a website ? it is a platform. Media and communications in general is moving into social networks ? journalism has to go there too. We have no choice as journalists. We either Network or die.

 

[Kwinzee]

If you are interested in this topic, as bloggers really should be, check out .

Extracts: 1) "We are going to lose more than just traditional news organisations. We are going to lose more than just traditional news practices. We are going to gain a whole new way of making news. We are in the process of reinventing the idea of what news is itself. That weird formulaic culture that was 20th century mass media western journalism may be at an end. And as an end, it is also a beginning. This is Rantanen?s fascinating conclusion which I will now use to make mine: ?Considering the historical trajectory of news from news hawkers in the Middle Ages to bloggers in the Information Age, it is possible to argue that we are now witnessing the death of ?modern news?, as conceived in the nineteenth century. In this
situation of multiple change, serious thought is required about what consitutes news. Everybody thinks they know what news is, but in fact nobody can define the twenty-first century concept of news. The boundaries are again becoming blurred. News may again become just new stories?
(Rantanen 2009)

2) So just when we thought we had got used to Web 2.0 here comes the next leap forwards, although it is about the uses of existing rather than new technology. It is social networking. Facebook is not a website ? it is a platform. Media and communications in general is moving into social networks ? journalism has to go there too. We have no choice as journalists. We either Network or die.

I say this isn't such a bad thing. Most of these big media organisations have financial interests warping the news they broadcast. If all the average Joes are broadcasting their story, at least you'll get to hear all sides of the story. Not just what Mr Big at Fox, or the BBC, or whoever want to broadcast..