The Internet and Journalism

Over the years, there has been significant debate about the role of the internet in both harming and helping journalism. Journalism today is more than just different from what it was in the past. Today's society is much more dependent on online communication becuase of lightening speed technology journalistic practices have become hasty and superficial. Since society wants information in milliseconds after an event has occurred or an important decision has been made, our desire to recieve news immediately has prevented journalists from digging deeper into sabout tories and from establishing essential personal connections with sources. However the future of newspapers has come into question in recent years. The industry has faced down soaring newsprint prices, slumping ad sales, the loss of much classified advertising and precipitous drops in circulation, but will the industry ever be able to recover?  In recent years the number of newspapers slated for closure, bankruptcy or severe cutbacks has increased. This has occurred especially in the United States, where the industry has shed a fifth of its journalists since 2001. Even the revenue has plunged and the competition of the internet media has squeezed older print publishers. However since the beginning of 2009, the United States has seen a number of major metropolitan newspapers go out of business. Some newspapers that have closed are The Rocky Mountain News. While some newspapers have started using the internet to publish their articles, so readers can still get their news on a free media. An article from The Economist titled, "Who killed the newspaper?" talks about when journalism was at its peak and how for the most part newspapers have lost to the internet. The article also talks about how advertising is following readers out the door and how employment in the journalism industry has declined 18% between 1990 and 2004, making it a hard business for recent graduate students to become employed in. A youtube video I found  titled Internet Journalism talks about how the internet has changed the way people communicate with one another and the impact its had on journalism. Soon newspapers will become completely obsolete and will be ancient history because everything will be digital and online.