The Cyber Journalist « Bembrey22’s Weblog

The Cyber Journalist

{ March 5, 2008 @ 5:50 am } · { Uncategorized }

The Cyber Journalist

Journalism is the gathering, writing and reporting of information. Cyber journalism just refers to the media that the journalist uses, the Internet. Cyber journalism is growing because of the speed in which information is getting to its readers. Though the same information can be found in print, most companies enjoy the endless possibilities of the Internet. Videos, podcasts, slideshows and blogs can now be shown and readers can actually comment on them letting their voice be heard to whoever wants to listen. Unfortunately most blogs are opinion based and so many people debate on whether it is really journalism.

Four computers are commissioned by the U. S. government to start an experimental network called ARPANET. The first tests are run in September 1969 at UCLA. In October of that year a second computer is connected in Stanford. UC Santa Barbara is added in November and the University of Utah joins in December. ARPANET evolves during the 1970s into a network called the Internet. During the 1970s to 1980s, the British Broadcasting Corporation developed videotex, which included communications services. Unfortunately it was an unsuccessful new media and online journalism format. Even though it failed, it laid the groundwork for new media in the 1990s. The CompuServe computer time-sharing device is developed around this time and played an important role in cyber journalism development. InfoBank, created by The New York Times grows in the 1970s and is a newspaper database service.

Alohanet, a packet radio network system, was the first wireless computer networking system in the 1970s and was developed by Norm Abramson at the University of Hawaii. Around the same time, IBM announces its new computers that support time-sharing and online computing. The first use of a computer terminal for journalism was in November 8^th, 1970. It was a news copy that was sent from Columbia, Couth Carolina to a computer in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1971 Intel’s 4004 microprocessor comes around and smaller, more powerful computers are being made. ARPANET then connects to 23 network computers and Ray Tomlinson sends one of the first e-mail messages. His new program uses the “@” symbol to separate the user’s login name to the host computer’s name. E-mail quickly becomes popular. Companies change from mechanical to computer production systems in 1971 and become the first major step in new media and online journalism. The first newspaper for go online was The Columbus Dispatch on July 1, 1980. In 1990 the World Wide Web (WWW) prototype is created at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Tim Berners-Lee wrote the original WWW program that brings together networked information and hypertext.

There is a problem with cyber journalism though. Anyone can do it. People are very computer savvy and it does not take very much to write about something online. This promotes the problem of authenticity. Since anyone can write stories or news online, who’s to say if the information is valid? This is why blogging is a debatable form of online journalism. You get biased opinions of people who may not even fully know what they are reporting about. If you want valid information make sure there are other links on the page what lead you to more information on the topic. Incorrect sites are not going to give you links if there is a possibility of being proved wrong.

There are different forms of blogs available to subscribers. Text blogs are text only journals. Video blogs are for people who videotape their information. This website is a report on a video journalists career. http://viewmag.blogspot.com/2007/03/video-journalist-decree.html

This form of blogging seems more factual because the blog readers/watchers can see the results rather than relying on the bloggers words. Podcasts are like text blogs in the way the subscribers have to rely on the bloggers words. Podcasts are MP3 audio recordings that can automatically download to a user’s computer as soon as they are published online.

Most sites that have audio, video and text reports are full of information found on television or in the newspaper such as www.CNN.com and http://www.nytimes.com/ . Both of these websites hold valid information and their readers know it. Their reputation is set so there are no worries about false facts. YouTube, www.youtube.com, is a website that people need to be careful of. Yes they have some factual information, but it is pretty easy to make fabricated information look real. Sites like www.ABC.com and www.NBC.com show a different form of journalism. While CNN and the New York Times gives out news, ABC and NBC mostly give out information on television shows. This is still a form of online journalism also. They are giving out information on a subject. They both have links to news reports within their original site.

People who do not have access to computers are at a disadvantage to people who do. The non-computer people can still find information but they will not find it at the rate the computer people do. Newspapers and library cards are a cheap but slow source compared to the Internet.

Different forms of regulations are used to control the media. Everyone is entitled to free speech media included. They are allowed to publish whatever stories whenever they want. However the public also has the right to privacy, which is the opposite of the medias’ free speech. The public has the right for the media to not publish certain stories. Therefore, journalism regulations restrict what the media says in order to protect individuals or groups. Some of the regulations are obvious ones such as fictional stories being published as factual ones is unacceptable. Other regulations are controversial. Can an interview with a minor be used without parental consent? Are there certain situations in which negating the privacy law allowed? Journalism “has no standards of admittance and no board of review”(everything2: Journalism Regulation). Therefore if a journalist breaks regulation rules they have no license to take away as a physician or an engineer would. Not only do they not have a license for their profession, but it would be illegal to issue them one. According to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. Even though most countries have no such law they still agree on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression through any media”. Instead a written form of conduct is used to keep moral levels in place. These regulations are the same throughout online journalism, TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Magazines and television tend to bend these rules as much as possible though.

The Internet is evolving very quickly and who knows what will be available next. Cyber journalists will keep growing and informing the public. I believe that regulations are not as strict as they should be. Yes, there is a lot that news companies are protecting the public from but there is a lot more that could be done about what is shown on the Internet.

Questions:

1. Do you think the amendment should be tweaked in order for journalists to have to have a license for their profession?

2. Are there really any regulations as to what’s on the Internet?

3. If the public is allowed privacy then why aren’t celebrities allowed theirs?

Sources

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_journalism

Journalism Resources compiled and edited by Karla Tonella, University of Iowa

http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/journalism/cyberjournalism.html

Poynteronline:

New Media Timeline