Recent Trends in Online Journalism

No longer are journalists and the news constrained by the technical limitations of analog media boundaries of print, television, or radio. Instead all modalities of human communication are available for telling the story in the most compelling interactive, on- demand, and customized  fashion  possible.  
Of course, newsroom traditions and training, as well as newsroom economics, may ultimately determine whether journalists fully utilize these online capabilities to create better, more complete and conceptualized news reports. Nevertheless, the technology makes improved journalism possible. For example “Apbonline” is a news website covering crime throughout the United States and internationally. It is an internet-original, or purely online, news product; it has no print or broadcast parent. Not just confined to text reporting, the site utilized interactivity, images. It also illustrates the unique capabilities of online news. 
A 1998 study places these findings in the context of online journalism, reveals that the 80 percent of adult Americans who use online media rate online news sources as just as credible as traditional news providers.
The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location.

Information Super Highway

The Information superhighway is a term that is sometimes used to describe the Internet.
Nam June Paik, a 20th century South Korean born American video artist, claims to have coined the term in 1974. “I used the term (information superhighway) in a study I wrote for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1974. I thought: if you create a highway, then people are going to invent cars. That's dialectics. If you create electronic highways, something has to happen.” The term was popularized by former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore in the early 1990s in a speech outlining plans to build a high-speed national data communications network. 

 

Information superhighway is a popular collective name for the Internet and other related large-scale computer networks. 
The information superhighway can be defined as ‘an information and communication technology network, which delivers all kinds of electronic services-audio, video, text, and data, to households and businesses. It is usually assumed that the network will allow for two-way communication, which can deliver ‘narrow-band’ services like telephone calls as well as ‘broad-band’ capabilities such as video-on-demand, teleshopping, and other ‘interactive TV’ multi-media applications. Services on the superhighway can be one-to-one (telephone, electronic, mail, fax, etc) one-to-many (broadcasting, interactive TV, videoconferencing, etc); or many-to-many (bulletin-boards and forums on the internet). 
The example of the ‘information Superhighway’ is the internet, which had its roots in the need during the mid-1960s for linking military computer researchers in the United States. Commercialisation of the networks began when the internet was opened up to the priviate service providers like Prodigy, Delphi, Genie, America Online (AOL) and Compuserve. The World Wide Web was developed at the European center for Particle Research in 1989, but took off only in 1993 when software developed at the University of Illinois and subsequently elsewhere, created ‘browsers’ and graphical interfaces making the search and interrogation of ‘pages’ on the WWW possible. Hundreds of ‘sites’ were placed on the Web.

Cyber Space

Cyberspace is a domain characterized by the use of electronics and the electromagnetic spectrum to store, modify, and exchange data via networked systems and associated physical infrastructures. The term originates in science fiction, where it also includes various kinds of virtual reality experienced by deeply immersed computer users or by entities who exist inside computer systems.
Cyberspace is a metaphor for describing the non-physical terrain created by computer systems. Online systems, for example, create a cyberspace within which people can communicate with one another (via e-mail), do research, or simply window shop. Like physical space, cyberspace contains objects (files, mail messages, graphics, etc.) and different modes of transportation and delivery. Unlike real space, though, exploring cyberspace does not require any physical movement other than pressing keys on a keyboard or moving a mouse. 
Some programs, particularly computer games, are designed to create a special cyberspace, one that resembles physical reality in some ways but defies it in others. In its extreme form, called virtual reality, users are presented with visual, auditory, and even tactile feedback that makes cyberspace feel real

FREELANCE JOURNALISM

FREELANCE JOURNALISM-

A freelancer or  freelance journalist is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular newspaper for  long term. Payment for freelance work also varies greatly. Freelancers may charge by a per word publish, per article or on a per-project basis.

Freelancers generally enjoy a greater variety of assignments than in regular employment, and—subject to the need to earn a regular income—usually have more freedom to choose their work schedule. The experience can also lead to a broad portfolio of work and the establishment of a network of clients.

The major drawback is the uncertainty of work and thus income, and in lack of company benefits such as a pension, health insurance , paid holidays and bonuses.  But Many freelancers  in journalism, regard themselves as having greater income security through the diversity of outlets—the loss of any one of which leads to the loss of only a portion of income, rather than its totality as with salaried employees.

Freelance journalism is one of the more hectic forms of freelance writing. A freelancer needs to be comfortable with spending much time hunting down stories, traveling from place to place, and writing under short deadlines. Freelance journalist has  opportunities for personal creativity.

When we talk about freelance journalism, we need to distinguish between two types: newspaper journalism and magazine journalism. As a rule, newspaper journalism involves a much narrower range of subject matter than magazine journalism, significantly shorter articles, and a greater focus on form. Typical newspaper articles follow a hierarchical format: the most pertinent information first, the least pertinent last.

manuplation of news & bias in news

Media Manipulation

The media is manipulated in all manners, for example through professional public relations (PR), and covert and overt government propaganda which disseminates propaganda as news. What are often deemed as credible news sources can often knowingly or unknowingly be pushing political agendas and propaganda.

Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favours their particular interests.^[1] Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies and propaganda techniques, and often involve the suppression of information or points of view by crowding them out, by inducing other people or groups of people to stop listening to certain arguments, or by simply diverting attention elsewhere.

BIAS IN NEWS

Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the perspective of an individual journalist or article. The direction and degree of media bias in various countries is widely disputed.

Practical limitations to media neutrality include the inability of journalists to report all available stories and facts, and the requirement that selected facts be linked into a coherent narrative.

The most commonly discussed forms of bias occur when the media support or attack a particular political party, candidate, or ideology, but other common forms of bias include

• Advertising bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please advertisers.

• Corporate bias, when stories are selected or slanted to please corporate owners of media.

• Mainstream bias, a tendency to report what everyone else is reporting, and to avoid stories that will offend anyone.

Cultural Reporting

Culture reporting

The term “The Culture Beat” refers to the way a newspaper will assign reporters to cover various sites where news originates-city hall, the police reports, sports, entertainment, local, etc.

Culture reporting is characterized by its punchy style, rough language, and

ostensible disregard for conventional journalistic writing forms and customs. The reporter attempts to present a multi-disciplinary perspective on a particular story, drawing from popular culture, sports, political, philosophical and literary sources. It is styled eclectic or untraditional. Culture reporting remains a feature of popular magazines. It has a good deal of entertainment value.

Culture reporting also focuses on the personal lives of people, primarily celebrities, including movie and stage actors, musical artists, models and photographers, other notable people in the entertainment industry, as well as people who seek attention, such as politicians, and people thrust into the attention of the public, such as people who do something newsworthy.

Culture reporting today is the province of newspaper gossip columnists and gossip magazines and has become the focus of national tabloid newspapers .  It differs from feature writing in that it focuses on people who are either already famous or are especially attractive, and in that it often covers celebrities obsessively, to the point of these journalists behaving unethically in order to provide coverage. Paparazzi, photographers who would follow celebrities incessantly to obtain potentially embarrassing photographs, have come to characterize celebrity journalism.

It is the most common kind of reporting where reporters are placed at the most strategic news-breaking points like hospitals, courtrooms, police headquarters, airports, railway stations, universities, government and corporate offices and health and recreation centers. Unlike editorial writing, the culture reporting is impersonal.

A culture reporter is should essentially be an honest storyteller, who should rise above his prejudices and subjectivity. He should be fair and impartial and present in all aspects of the story. Complete objectivity may be required as the primary job of a reporter in any beat is to tell the truth.

crime reporting

Crime reporting

There are tremendous public interests in crime stories and no newspaper can afford to ignore them without damage to circulation and credibility. Crime is a part of life and it is newspaper’s duty to inform the readers of what crimes are going on in their city, state or country. However, crime reporting should not aim at satisfying morbid curiosity or sensation mongering. Although crime reporting is usually assigned to one of the junior reporters in a newspaper, it is a highly responsible and specialized job. The reporter should not only have the ability to sift the grain from the chaff, and the truth from lies, he should also have good contacts in the police and other departments of the administration as well as working knowledge of the penal codes and law on libel and other relevant matters.

Besides, he must observe a code of honour. He should be as objective and as humanly as possible so as to avoid resorting to sensationalism or cheap gimmicks to catch the attention of the readers or the viewers. He should not suppress news of public interest. Nor should he seek to settle personal scores with police officers or lawyers or judges. And he must be careful that in the course of his work, he does not unnecessarily invade a citizen’s privacy.

There has been much criticism of press reporting of crime and not all of it is

baseless. Some reporters have been found guilty of unethical standards, thus causing much pain and sorrow to their victims or their families and friends. Crime Reporters try to glorify the activities of criminals or sometimes make heroes of them. This practice should be discouraged as much as a resort to sensationalism.

The crime reporter much never violates standards of decency and good news taste. There are several types of crime news-murders, fires, accidents, robberies, burglaries, fraud, blackmail, kidnapping, rape, etc.

There are a few fundamental precautions which a crime reporter must take

account of:

• The first is that the police and prosecutors rarely will give them information on a silver platter. That means, a tremendous amount of interviewing and research must be done in a very short time so that a coherent story may be written

• There is no guarantee of police accuracy; and therefore police versions of

names, addresses and other facts must be checked

• Police and journalistic terminology are not identical. The legal term for a

slaying is a homicide, but many news organizations loosely and incorrectly

refer to such crimes automatically as murder.