It can be said that journalism is the last line of defense for freedom, if it is lost the fourth estate is no longer watching out for the people; unfortunately, the decline is visible. Broadcast journalism has a very hard standard to meet, the prerequisites along here at the University of Central Florida can be overwhelming to say the least, but even with the new generation of people that are meeting higher communication standard; how close are we to losing what we have so carefully crafted?
We live now in an era of infinite information, and that is thanks to all the access we continuously have to modern technology. Just the other day while drifting through the channels it was announced by the cable network, The History Channel, that the smartphone has beaten electricity as the most influential invention that humans have ever created. This was rationalized by stating that presently any person can access any question and quickly come up with a complete answer, before the smartphone this was an impossibility.
This of course has assimilated into every aspect of our life, and as we can tell along with many other aspects of our culture journalism has taken a hit. Though it is possible for every0ne with a smartphone and internet connection to read the latest headlines, it is important to realized that before the age of continuously flowing information, critical thinking was part of every piece of literature written (including news). Presently, it seems like the only things that reporters can agree on is that it is very hard to hold the attention of their audience. This phenomena can be linked to the abundant amount of headlines that people can easily scroll through, which is causing the audience to read an article but neither care nor really analyze. This is brought by a higher amount of news sharing that the same technology has given us; so it seems that we have only one choice. Do we make more headlines so everyone can fine something they like (even though it may not mean anything), or do we select only newsworthy pieces (that will positively impact society, but no one will read)?