News, Journalists and Bloggers

Producing the News is the term genuinely applied to professional Journalists. But what is News? Depending on the person asked, there will be a different definition for every person. Some may answer News Bulletin Broadcasts for example Kerry O'Brien 7.30 report on the ABC, another may answer Who Weekly womans magazine, or somebody else may come running up shouting, 'I have some great news, theres a sale downtown lets go!'

News can be incorporated into 'fun' and entertaining programs. Entertaining news programs (Rove, The Chasers War on Everything, The Panel or Good News Week) have been aimed to inform the younger audience that do not engage in Bullitin news as easily as the older generation.

The blurring boundaires between news and entertainment has made news more popular and watchable for the younger generation. Stephen Harrington of Queensland University of Technology discusses in his paper Future Proofing Journalism: Youthful Tastes and the Challenge for the Academy that TV news can seem foreign to viewers similar to being beamed in from another planet. People will not be inclined to watch something that they find boring or difficult to understand. The language used the majority of the time seems to lack emotions and speaks a different language to ordinary every day conversation. Some may argue that news is serious and must be spoken in this tone, but instead of simply relaying analytical information, perhaps some viewers may enjoy a detailed discussion on current events, a tactic that Channel 10s The Panel makes use of. People are now seeking news in all shapes and forms. News is presented in multiple mediums and has given rise to competitive journalism of all shapes and forms.

Widespread interest in the news from a range of different audiences with different interests means that people will get their news from different sources. People want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge. There has been a shift in mediums used to convey news, a decline in traditional news mediums and an increase in online news sources.

Audiences can publish material online without having to study an actual Journalism degree, news is now being published by the non-journalist. Inviting the nation to participate in news production engages the audience in the news. For example the devostating Boxing day tsunamis that occured in 2004, was an absolutley horrific event, few if any Journalists were there to capture footage, rather some people who lived to tell the tale recorded the event with hand held video recorders or mobile phones. Most of the footage shown on the news was from citizens with no degree in journalism, who were simply citizens on holiday/working/living.

Users are now reporting on their own experiences instead of professionals deceiding on what is newsworthy and what is not. This rise in citizen journalism, blogging, videorecording, podcasts and YouTube posts is a response to the population wanting to share experiences and swap stories. What is rubbish to one person may be breaking news to another.

Many studies have been conducted in the US on news consumption, Mundich outlines in his book Tuned out: Why Americans Under 40 dont Follow the News (2005) that there has been a rapid decrease in the amount of newspapers read everyday by 23-27 year olds. In 1997 40% of young people read the newspaper everyday
In 2002 only 19% reported reading the newspaper everyday.

Grame Turner points out in his book Ending the Affair: The Decline of Television Current Affairs in Australia that between 1980 and 1993 the percentage of viewers aged 18-34 watching commercial network news in the US had dropped by more than 45%.

These results show that yes there has been a decrease in interest in what is commonly refered to as traditional news mediums, but what about other sources of news?

Around this time (1990s) the world wide web was becoming increasingly more popular, and perhaps it is not that people are less interested in news as they once were in the past, but perhaps people are getting their news from other sources, publishing their own stories, becoming citizen journalists, becoming actively involved.