A New Type Of Journalism

The old style public affairs reporting is dead.

Over the years, journalism, and especially newspapers, have changed dramatically. There is a new generation which wants its news in different ways. They don’t want to wait until the morning to get the headlines from a flimsy black and white stack of paper. They don’t want to wait until 6 p.m. to find out what happened during the day. They don’t want to wait until 11 p.m. to get their late night news.

People want news delivered directly to them in new, fresh ways, as it is happening.

That is the truth about where the news is heading.

It used to be the 6 p.m. and 1 p.m. news, and now it is 24/7 news coverage on channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

It used to be the morning paper, and now it is online, and smart phones and Twitter.

It used to be breaking news at lunchtime, and now it is a scrolling ticker on the bottom of every channel. We want the news, and we want it now.

That is not the only thing that has changed about journalism over the years.

Instead of a column on the side of a newspaper, or an article in Time Magazine, we have interactive graphics and ways for the public to dig and find the information that they want out of the story.

When Chris Davis from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune came to talk to us about Public affairs reporting, I thought it would be about filing for reports and piecing together a 500 word story for a daily paper, but he showed that there is so much more that we can do now.

His “stories” about real-estate flipping and the murder mystery, intrigued me and showed me a new type of journalism. It is the type of journalism that fit’s the needs of the public, and while many are saying journalism is dead, I say that it is evolving… for the better.