“Honey, will you fetch me the morning paper from the doorstep?” said no middle-aged family man in the last decade ever. The next generation will soon enough not even know what a paper boy is unless they are on the lap of their grandpa listening to him talk about his first job he ever had as a young boy. Print journalism is out and new digital media news sources are in and here to stay. Now it is not to say that print newspapers will not be around any longer, they will just have much less of a presence in timely news. With so many platforms for news to circulate on, it brings both positive and negative repercussions. Fake news is a phrase tossed around far too often in today’s news cycle and shines a critical light on journalists. Someone scrolls through their Facebook feed and see’s that, Obama is planning a coup d’état in the coming months for the sake of the people from Donald Trump. The level of simply false and cringe worthy news that is circulating unregulated on Facebook, one the world’s largest social media platforms is unreal (Collins). Citizen journalism is also another addition to digital news coverage that allows for anyone with an iPhone to create news, whether its credible or not. Real journalism is the process by which information in our world is told, and what they do with it, that is real objective journalism (Craft & Davis 89). There is no hard governing for the rules of journalism, that is why todays lines of good journalism is blurred and in need for the distinction between what qualifies as news versus journalism because both exist. Print Journalism is rapidly declining and being replaced by new digital based media that is emerging out of the mass influx in the rise of technology. Digital media is the new form of journalism and is replacing print journalism through the emergence of the internet, popularity of new digital platforms and creation of sustainable methods in the new digital age. This foreseeable shift from print to digital, although long term results have yet to be tested, new media is vital to journalism for the sustainability of digital platforms, reliability of news outlets and writer credibility.

Journalists have to be ambiguous with new social media news outlets in order to still be the “watchdogs” of the nation even if that means paying for it again. Journalism as an entity is responsible for monitoring the corruption of the world, to seek out the truth and to let no false information reach the masses of America to be a wrongly informed public. The most that paid journalists can do is present what they know to the world and hope that the masses sifting through fake news can still recognize what hard, working news stories wield in influence. Journalists write for the sake of the people, in order for them to make an informed decision on the governments elected officials and public figures in proximity. They take down corrupt businesses, they battle Wall Street and they even take down President’s. The Water Gate Scandal with former impeached President, Richard Nixon was found out by several writers for the Washington Post. This went down as one of the most heroic journalistic sanctions to date. Journalists work for the good of the people and at the root of all evil is money. Getting at the root of the problem with all the fake news today is money. John Oliver in his weekly talk show advocates for the necessity of payed news again. Without journalists being payed what they deserve, Facebook, Twitter and several hundred other sites and outlets will continue to produce half assed “journalism” that the people cannot rely on. Subscriptions, money walls, daily clicks, once the news cycle went free and online, is when the initial decline of print newspapers for one declined, and two: objective, real journalism. The only way to restore the faith in journalists and future journalism is to pay for news again (Last Week Tonight). The hardest part to sustain the vast new platforms of news is whether or not people with pay for it, because most of this information is consumed for free, which makes funding a large-scale news entity’s rather difficult. Once people are given something for free, it is very difficult to turn around and ask them to pay for it again, but this is exactly what the new digital based news cycle needs in order to survive. Although the outlets in which journalism is shared has changed, the deliverance in information cannot cease to exist. The proposed comeback is being seen in the recognition of bringing journalism to what people are drawn to most these days, social media. 

Consider Snapchat, a rising, most used social media app not only for snapping pics but also as a way for students and targeted younger generations to receive their daily news. The ingenious behind the fun snippets of news from magazines like Cosmopolitan to the Washington Post to National Geographic is that they are setting up for the future work force who are earning salaries. They are priming the youth into wanting these news stories every day so that when they are of age and capable for buying subscriptions, their money will be spent on sustainable subscriptions depending on the taste of the informed buyer. Today one in six Americans are getting their news from social media according to a study done by Pew Research just last year (Mitchell). That is a tremendous number and will only continue to rise with the progression of integration of social media and journalism. Other emerging aspects of social media is through sites such as buzzfeed, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, VSCO and the list goes on and on. The way that all these platforms survive on is ads and ad revenue. Google and Facebook alone make up for 75% of online news (Pew Research). Not only does this news circulate online but through the use of mobile apps. People left right and center without a doubt have the apps for all their favorite sports teams, news stations and social media trends right on their phones. Notifications are put into play so anytime that say the Blackhawks draft a new player to their team or Ben Affleck decides to work things out with Jennifer, the minute it hits a news site, the word is out and flashing up on your phone at the blink of an eye. This is the timeliness that news today runs on and is a fast pace, two steps ahead of everyone else kind of industry. This revelation in the deliverance of media alerts alone has made a world of difference in the progress for effective and efficient news deliverance. 

New alternatives to your seemingly irreplaceable morning newspaper have arrived. Although newspapers may seem obsolete in this day and age, they are still enjoyed by every age, but most specifically the older generation. Just like vinyl’s newspapers will forever be the concrete foundation in the making of journalism (McNair). Replacing a millennial old tradition may be harder than expected though. The baby boom generation has a very large stakehold in the print industry and refuses to change from their everyday methods of consuming news. Pew Research shows as of 2105, nearly 50 percent of adults 65 and up still get their news from the daily paper and 38 percent of adults between the age of 55 and 63 years do the same (Pew Research). Financially though, newspapers are struggling so much with not enough funding and downsizing that they are in turn, driving people to online news plugs. To get the The New York Times delivered seven days a week for a year is upwards of a thousand dollars, and for every Sunday delivery, $514 depending on your location (NYT). Some might be thinking how un reigned free accessible online news will survive? The answer is in the economics of new models for journalism. Newspapers generate money from subscriptions, ads and classified ads. The four models include podcasts, paywalls, newsletters and nonprofit funding (Craft & Davis 147). Newsletters are making a tremendous come back. In the mornings, the first thing the average person does is check the news. One may have on ESPN, sitting down to have breakfast and also simultaneously is checking their email for the day, when there it is, all at once there is every shred of important news for the day at hands reach. TheSkimm for example is a compilation of the highest quality political news of the day that is sent out every morning to one’s personal email. It gives brief snippets of each major headline of the day and has links to the full story if intrigued. Brian Stetler as well, host of CNN’s Reliable Sources, does a nightly broadcast of the day or weeks top stories. In addition to his on-screen news, he compiles a daily newsletter that is sent out every night of the week for those who have subscribed portraying what a viewer might have missed. A genius idea really and the key to this wide spread success is the depth in which these stations and people are accessible on every platform. Not everyone has time to sit down for the six, nine or eleven o’clock news, but if one is on the train ride home from work and wants to know, it is as easy as opening your email on one’s electronic device. Newsletters are just one facet of the new world of journalism giving popularity to digital, internet based journalism. 

The shift from print to online news is a happening trend that is another step towards the digital journalism revolution. With the relocation from papers to online sites, there seems to be less of a draw for individuals to pursue journalism because they think that it is a dying industry. Subsequently, as Indeed points out, there is definitive decrease in undergraduates who are choosing to major in journalism and thus graduating with journalism degrees. According to a 2016 research compiled by the website, the number one field journalists are going to is marketing and leaving writers and editors in print journalism at number 7 on the list of 10 (Indeed). There is an undeniable decline in journalists by looking at the hundreds of print news organizations that have been forced to downsize and ultimately close their doors. Although people’s schema for a traditional journalist may be a columnist working for a newspaper and not some online based news cite, journalists are still present and accounted for. The downsizing in newspaper companies has deterred people from pursuing the field yes, but it has also led to a steady increase in other branches of journalism such as online digital sources. ESPN has a completely online presence now and more and more news sites are becoming internet native news stations. The Huffington Post is the first news station to be exist solely online. News, reporting, all aspects of the organization run online (Huffington Post). It was created as early as May of 2005, a real eye opener and start of the acknowledgment for journalism to move online. Podcasts, foreign correspondents, and so many other new platforms are surfacing when just the single print newspaper is declining. The traditional look at the face of newspapers and journalists solely existing on the basis of one business is changing whether the article decides to acknowledge it or not.

The opportunity for local journalism coverage in the middle of the country remains an untapped goldmine. There is no doubt that digitalized news and journalism is here to stay, but to understand what is happening one has to consider where this all stemmed from. In talking to Dr. Romney, a professor of journalism here at the University of South Carolina, he exclaimed that the presence that alone took the model of journalism and shook it as if it were a snow globe, was the Internet (Romney). The emergence of the internet turned everything upside down and immediately the decline of columns, newspaper industries and journalists saw cut backs. Along with this came local journalism and the creation of the media bubble (Friedman-Rudovsky). Media hot spots through website and television broadcast became centralized in the top three most media influenced cities in the world: New York City, Wall street in D.C. and Los Angelos, California. If one were to look up the creation and headquarters of each major app or industry of today’s social media, these are the cities that would be seen. The unforeseen drawback of coverage in the rest of the country, everywhere in-between the East and West coast, is the opportunity for untold stories in thriving states that just do not have representatives or resources from large “bubble” industries to be covered. That is where the untapped market is and copious numbers of journalists are flocking to and making a living, online. The difference between bubble cities and everything else is the time and commitment journalists have to put in. In large cities, they have crews who each have specific jobs to collectively produce a story. Local journalists do every step of the process themselves, from pitching the story, to writing it, publishing it and managing multiple platforms just to keep their business alive. There will always be a high demand for quality journalists just as the medical world will always have a place for nurses in the workforce, journalism is essential in keeping America’s (democracy) alive. It is the hard-working people who are determined to bring local journalism as a force to recon with in the new competitive 24-hour news cycle who will keep good journalism afloat.

In summation, the emergence of new digital media, through new platforms and outlets of the internet and social media, translates the demand for real objective journalism and sustaining the untested news of today. It was newspapers from the very start, the printing press, the penny paper, mail by horses and paper boys, newspapers were the way of life. Then radio was introduced in the 20’s and people thought it would be a revolution of change, but still newspapers stayed dominant. The 1980’s brought along cable television and again people thought the news cycle would implode and expand, which it did, but stayed centralized with newspapers. But with the surfacing of the Internet, every model of journalism has changed in response to it. Critics are quick to say that journalism is no means what it used to be, but what really all that has changed is the fact that people, alongside journalists are creating news. And the change comes from having to decide between what is true or false in what is being displayed to them. Today it is all about the consumer and the fashion in which journalism can be received in a timely matter with the busy day to day of the working American. While the distribution model of journalism changes fundamentally, the process changes only slightly and its values do not change at all. The stake holders in the sanctity of keeping journalism alive with the new Internet based machine, are the media themselves, the government and most importantly the citizens and masses of America. An intellectual citizen is an informed citizen about the need to know extremities that make this country a democracy. Newspapers that are gone, simply have been rebirthed to fit the new digital technology of the century. And people have to get behind the idea in order for the new model of journalism to survive for generations to come, just as the print model had.
