The Online "Menace"

New, unfamiliar things are always a bit scary, especially in the world of media. When the first renditions of printed news came about in the 18th century politicians became fearful of its ability to discredit their reputation by providing the public with information regarding their less appropriate actions.
After newspapers became established a new media threat appeared. With the geographical and timely advantages of radio technology, newspapers were challenged as advertisers left print and took their business to radio. With voices like Edward R. Murrow reporting on World War II radio gained a loyal news audience.
However, the threat of new media doesn't end with radio. Just like newspapers and radio before it Television was viewed as a threat to the already existing media.
Now,the 21st century has done it again. The world wide web has started a media revolution especially within the industry of journalism. Newspaper organizations have their hands full with the mess of adjusting to the online world. Some agencies are using both print and online versions, others or weening off of print altogether in order to take full advantage of seemingly limitless online possibilities. Others are firing all their employees and rewriting their job descriptions to make room for those employees best equip to carry their agency through this media revolution.
Despite the jittery state that journalists and news agencies find themselves in the format for distributing news is changing. The internet has given the public more access and more vocal clout than it has previously been exposed to. News has become (or could become) more of dialogue, a conversation, a collaborative effort between both journalists and the public to present all the facts and all the truth.
As "radio has given the President [FDR] a weapon such as no ruler has ever known," said Radio Guide editor of 1934, so will the internet give journalists and the public a means of changing the way we view news and the media.

American Journalism in Historical Perspective (Overholser)
http://mediactive.com/2009/09/12/eleven-things-id-do-if-i-ran-a-news-organization/
http://yeetorrents.com/news4/2009/09/15/7-ways-to-make-news-sites-more-social/

What is journalism, who is a journalist?

   As I started to think about what journalism is, I almost immediately asked myself, “Well, what are the origins of journalism?  Who were the first journalists and why did they start ‘journaling’…?”  For starters, as I look at the word journalism and as I begin to dissect it the word “journal” stands out. 

            Journalism, like a journal, is a record of a community.  It is a concerned record of a community, whether that community is a town, a state, a nation or the world.  Members of a community are concerned for their well-being and as a means of self-reflection use journalism to bring about whatever is in the community’s best interest. Journalism prioritizes and sets the agenda for the public as to what they need to know in their community.  If members are informed then they can take action and bring about change. 

            I feel modern journalism strives to bring the community this information in a factual and objective fashion (or at least they say they do).  When journalism sways from this it tends to be labeled as propaganda or voyeurism, which perhaps are just dirty words for journalism.

            The journalist is not just someone who makes this historical rough draft of its community and then leaves it on the shelf for no one to read it.  The journalist has a concern or issue with the community, records the facts that are relevant and important and then publishes them for all to access.  In a way journalism is a conversation within the community that is started by the journalist.