Over the last century, news has changed drastically. Original newspapers were focused solely on politics and general world news. The journalists here in the United States did not even write their own articles but rather repeated the stories and information they received from foreign mail. Newspapers later became more nationally concerned with our own government, education, healthcare and religions. The stories were being written by the journalists at the papers as original works instead of second hand news. Once television swept the nation, newspapers and radio stations became much more fragmented in their news. The subjects of the stories changed as well. Content moved away from politics and general news to sports and entertainment while maintaining interest in religion, education and health. This new niche fad gave an uprising to covering social trends and concerns, providing articles with relationship advice or recipes. Finally, news went digital. The emergence of the Internet has provided so many options for free news and information. For the public, this is a great revolution. For newspaper companies, it is a nightmare. Now a days people can search one key word on the internet and find millions of sources for information. Google even has a “News” link so that the key word can be found in news articles. Internet users can look at their search engine results and see hundreds of dollars they are saving. However, newspaper companies can look at it as thousands or millions of dollars they are losing. Although some major newspapers are going digital and profiting, such as The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, others are not transitioning well. Many newspaper companies have been forced to cut their staff in half and remove much of their content.
Another issue related to the transition to digital media is the loss of local news. Many locals do report news online. However, most bloggers report celebrity gossip and entertainment news and the actual local news being reported by citizens may not be trustworthy. Some newspaper companies are collaborating with citizen journalists to receive local news while having their experienced reporters follow up to confirm. I think this is a great idea and probably the best solution to the lack of local news.