Sunday, July 12, 2009

Is Online Journalism, is still Journalism?

Is Online Journalism, is still Journalism? This question really makes me think on what to answer. Well, as far as the question is concerned, and in a one-dimensional interpreting of the question, of course online journalism is journalism. How they will come up in a description of the name “online journalism”, if they don’t know that it is journalism, right?

On the other hand, online journalism is the reporting of news, events and facts using the Internet. While, journalism is a form of writing that tells people about things that really happened, but that they might not have known about it already. Journalism can also be defined as the production of news reports through the use of media such as newspapers, radio, television and internet.

With the definition I found, well journalism covers the online journalism since journalism can be spread through internet. Journalists might work at newspapers, magazines, and websites or for TV or radio stations. Here in the Philippines, we have various companies that already gain credibility in terms of journalism that also uses internet on disseminating news nationwide. Those are the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Manila Bulletin, Philippine Star and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (P-C-I-J). They report news; events and facts through websites. They are the credible and reliable source of information or news that proves that online journalism can be journalism.

So for me, online journalism can be considered as journalism but the real thing there is, if all the writers or the bloggers can be considered as journalist? The rise of internet technology, in particular the advent of blogging and social networking further destabilize traditional journalism. The widening world of online journalism creates several discussions about legality, ethics and ways of information. Because not all the bloggers follows the ethics of journalism, in some way, just to persuade their audience they would rather sensationalized their news. It is difficult to conclude that blogging or online journalism is journalism, but several of them can be considered real reporting. However, in order to be considered an authentic blogger, he has to express it trough what is expected from an accurate mass media – always report facts, don’t be bias, as much as possible be objective not subjective, keep your credibility, and integrity. There is what we called code of ethics that the journalist should use as their guidelines in writing or reporting their news.

As a journalism student, I should consider my self as a professional journalist; therefore I should possess all the characteristics that a good journalist has. Then again I should also follow the Code of Ethics of Journalists. But I also kept in my mind that there are people as well as some of them who claim themselves as online journalists who do not have a formal education in journalism and information, can report news, events and facts through blogs and websites, they are called as the “citizen journalist”. I will not stop them from calling their self as journalist but I know that we, journalism students have all the guts to gain credibility in our audience. Since we all know how to make news that may have an appeal to the mind and in the emotion of the mass. I do believe that people nowadays are intelligent enough to classify if news are accurate or not.

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