How news is disseminated and where we get our news has changed significantly in the last twenty to thirty years.  Much of this can be attributed to what is known as the digital age. The digital age is the introduction of the internet and other new technologies that have revolutionized the world’s communication.  News is essentially a form of mass communication from an investigative group to the public.  A reporter’s job is to investigate, inform, analyze, interpret and explain (Kovach).  Does the new technology utilized everyday hinder the journalistic process or make it better?  The digital age has created a more efficient way to inform people, but at a cost. 

 According to the Ethical Journalism Network the five core values of journalism are truth and accuracy, independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity, and accountability (The Five Core Values of Journalism). Each value is critical in creating a piece that is newsworthy and responsible. Without these principles, news cannot be trustworthy and dependable. Truth and accuracy are what provide the most credibility to journalists. The main goal is to present the truth to people and the truth be correct. If what is being presented is false or missing facts, it can create a distrust between the writer and their readers. A journalist must be held accountable for his words and writing. Without accountability, information loses its value. It cannot be given the same amount of trust as expected. Michael Oreskes describes journalism  and journalists as “the independent observers of the world, who go places our audience can’t go, dig where our audiences can´t dig, study and interpret what our audiences do not have time to study and interpret, so that our audiences can better understand the world” (Kröll).  

News is an indispensable part of our daily lives. The information posed to the populace must be reliable, fair and accurate in its presentation. In the best-case scenario, it has an objective view and states all the facts in a way that is easily understood by the audience. Over time news has become less about reporting and more about readership or what the people want to hear rather than what they need to hear. The digital age makes it easier to get information to people without them having to pay for it. The problem is profits go down. News outlets struggle to pay their journalists which forces them to find stories that appeal to their audience’s interests rather than stories they need to help make informed decisions. Without an outlet that provides honest and reputable information, the public cannot be expected to understand what is going on in the world.

Accountable journalism is important in providing a check on authority. The journalism community is one that holds officials to a higher standard and investigates corruption or the lack of revelation of information. In an article by the Washington Post in 1998, they released statistics concerning shootings by police officers in the D.C. area. These statistics showed that after hiring many new officers and introducing a new gun to their arsenal, police shootings had spiked significantly in comparison to other major cities. Through the release of this information it forced the D.C. police department to reevaluate their hiring and training process. It demonstrated “results of reporting do not come cheaply to news organizations but deliver tremendous value to society” (Hamilton). While the newspaper spent an estimated $487,000 on the series, the following year shootings dropped from 32 to 11 and then to 1 the next year. So despite the high cost for the newspaper, the benefits to the public’s safety far outweighed the expense of the paper. 

In the rise of the internet, newspapers began to transition to online editions and stories that people could not get in the paper. The idea is that by providing another media source, readers will be more likely to buy the print form and become a loyal reader. The issue that arises is the lack of payment from online publications. It forced publishers to search for a solution in the form of a paywall. The reader has to have a payed subscription to the website in order to read the articles published there (Kovach). But why pay for a subscription on one website when you can get it for free on another one? 

With the lack of income from subscriptions, the reliance on advertising has become stronger. Advertising sales online continue to go down, but were not very high to begin with. The thought was that readers would click on the advertisements and the paper’s online addition would profit from the clicks. Each click plus the amount of time the user spent on the ads website was how much the advertisement’s company had to pay the newspaper. However, most people don’t bother with ads and even have ad blockers installed to avoid them all together.  At this point the online edition has no way to make money without using a paywall. 

Readers are very reluctant to pay for quality journalism now because they didn’t have to before. They have been conditioned to click and read whatever pops up without having to provide payment for the information. According to Cody McMullen of Enigma Media “The reason that people don’t want to pay for content online is because it’s boring. Were in the age that everything is at our fingertips and we want things fast” (Media in the Digital Age). The kind of news readers are consuming are quick listicles that hold little to no important information and cater to the shorter attention span that is prevalent amongst frequent internet users. The patience for reading an entire, informative article, is just not there anymore. The journalism industry has always struggled with staying in the black but the mistake of making information free is the most devastating blow to profits and newspaper’s livelihood.

Another issue that has come with news in the digital age is how quickly everything is produced. In the hustle to stay competitive, stories are pounced upon like prey. They are ripped apart and handed to people in a messy pile with a lack of truth and even less investigative quality. This is not quite a new concept. There has been an emphasis on getting “the scoop” for a long time, but with print journalism the newspaper or magazine can only be printed so fast. Limits to how quickly a story can break come from the slower distribution of newspapers as opposed to being able to instantly post something online for people to read mere seconds later. Even television news has to work at a slower pace because going live without enough facts can lead to a distribution of misinformation. 

A change in who can be a journalist has affected the news being fed to the public. Citizen journalism contributes to the faster dissemination of information. The common man is constantly walking around with all the tools they need to report on the next enthralling story. A smartphone can take pictures and video and connect instantly to the internet to post whatever it may have seen. A member from The Guardian staff stated "Tweeting is journalism. So is podcasting and Facebooking. Journalism is about investigating stories and knowing how to tell them" (Marsh). No longer is journalism just defined by television stations, newspapers, and radio, but it is an integral part of what people read throughout their day. “The collaboration with the audience is not only necessary, it is inevitable, because, we can do more together than we can apart” says Nic Newman.  A study by the University of Oxford argues that the transition to more citizen journalism still requires fundamental aspects like editing, analyzing and verifying (Kröll). Yet there seems to be a lack of attention to the fundamentals from those who are not trained in them. Citizen journalism is a blessing and a curse.

Journalists are increasingly relying on social media to stay current with their competitors and audiences. According to a study done by the University of Indiana’s School of Journalism, 78% of journalists use social media to find breaking news. 59% of journalists use social media to find story ideas and 73% use it to stay up to date with their competitors. 69% of journalists feel that social media has helped them to become more engaged with their audience (Willnat 19-20). The impact of social media is palpable and shows just how important it is to the journalistic process in the 21st century.  

Partisan in media outlets has created a news space that does not reflect the world around us but rather opinions constantly being thrown at the people. The implications of a biased media are that the information is no longer, reliable, fair and accurate. 50% of journalists claim to identify as independents (Willnat 11). In comparison to 1982 when only 39% of journalists identified as independents. However, despite this information there is actually nor as much bias as it may seem. The creation of niches and certain news outlets that cater to the opinions of one side or the other creates a picture that all outlets have one slant or the other. “This means your chance of running into “news” that seems biased has increased exponentially” because it has a place, the internet, to concentrate itself (Fahri).

The internet allows for the catering to small groups rather than a wider, generalized audience. Only about 12% of journalists believe that appealing to a wide and diverse audience is important (Wilnat 17). These specialized groups look at other groups and see them as far from their own opinion when they may be fighting for the same thing just worded in a way they understand better. It also may be caused by a rise in watchdog groups whose goals is to root out bias media, bringing attention to anything that may not meet their standards for neutrality. In a way it brings about the Barbara Streisand effect, which brings attention to something that would never have been noticed if not made a big deal by the only person that was bothered by it to begin with. 

With the consistent exposure to more diverse media platforms, comes an increased criticism. “All that scrutiny of the press may suggest an inescapable conclusion: There’s something wrong with the news media. All the time” despite their efforts to maintain a just and truthful reporting (Fahri). So, are journalists failing at keeping neutrality or is the criticism calling attention to something that has been there all along? Is it really possible to be completely unbiased? It is unreasonable to think that anyone with an opinion, which is everyone, could ever set aside everything they believe in to report without leaning one way or the other.  

Language is powerful and when put in a particular order can have an entirely different meaning than when ordered another way. How a reporter arranges their diction and syntax creates their message.  It cannot be expected of anyone to have true impartiality towards a subject. Daniel Moynihan said “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” And Jay Rosen states that “the discipline of verification” should be far more important than “whether the composer of the account has a view , comes to a conclusion, [and] speaks with attitude” (Sambrook 11). If the information is true, its presentation doesn’t really matter as much. Readers are going to interpret what they want to no regardless of the way it is being stated, so why would including a little bit of an opinion make any difference?

There can be a hierarchy in news outlets. Listening to NPR is seen as academically superior to watching Entertainment Tonight. The information being presented is considered inferior in one case and superior in the other. However both are important to their audience. The most important aspect is that the information is fair, accurate and impartial. The idea one media is better than the other creates a divide in how readers, viewers, and listeners view one another. It is seen to be lesser if someone appeals more to one type of outlet than another. The information is vastly different in each case and is considered to be telling of the kind of person one is based on the information they consume. This is very divisive and questions the credibility of sources based on the kind of information being provided. An outlet that provides pop culture news may actually be more accurate and truthful than a world news network if it verifies its information more than the world news network does.

Ultimately journalism needs to be held to a higher standard. Audiences are not as well informed or are misinformed because they are not making sure that their sources are reliable. Confirmation bias makes it difficult to question the credibility of the source because you want to believe it is true whether it is or not. News sources must be held accountable in the digital age now more than ever. Anyone can release information for people to read. It is the job of journalists to create an environment where only the facts make it through. 