The changing nature of news gathering and production.
Does www mean worldwide web or wild wild west?
Does www mean worldwide web or wild wild west?
Sometimes changes take place even when we are talking to the changes face to face, but yet we do not note the changes that have taken place. News is no different.
It may be likened to being in a long term relationship. How many of us notice the physical differences as they happen to our families or close friends? One day we notice the first few wrinkles or greys. And that is long after they came. Do you recall, easily, what they looked like before the changes?
The early years of media saw the formation of news gathering agencies. Their role included reporting on events and distributing the stories to other media houses without the resources to have reporters beyond their local boundaries. These were viewed as bastions of accuracy and credible news.
The New York Associated Press was created in 1848. This cooperative was a profit sharing arrangement for the members, that was formed to share the cost of gathering foreign news by telegraph. This agency eventually became today's Associated Press (AP). Another privately owned American organization that was established in 1884 was United Press, later United Press International (UPI), that used wire service. Across the Atlantic in London, the Reuters agency was established as an independent, international agency in 1851. Interestingly, the English were the first to report on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
And of course 'we thing', Caribbean News Agency (CANA) was established in 1976 by some members of the media as a regional agency spring boarding from its predecessor Reuters Caribbean. Members shared their local news with CANA who in turn distributed it among the regional membership. In 2000, CANA joined forces with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union ((CBU) to create the Caribbean Media Corporation, headquartered in Barbados.
Enter social media and a revolution in news took place. Everyone with a recording device and internet access has a newsroom.The purist maintained that there must be order, that news MUST be checked and double checked. Or that sources must be credible and reliable. But with the arrival of millions of 'citizen journalists' across the globe, social media such as Face book, Youtube and Twitter have removed any filter that traditionally ensured editing, accuracy, credibility and ethical behavior.
But who cares. Long before any news team could arrive, several citizens would have captured the images, and the news stories are transmitted before the first spark of a forest fire is blown by the wind into nature's Gehenna. Newsrooms now rely more on online sources from across the planet than before to keep them informed not just with verbal updates, but taped uploads of police brutality, dead bodies, Arab spring uprising images, blooming flowers and images of a beautiful Tobago sunset by sea.
But what about the protection of the innocent? New media have no friends or enemies. They got it. We get it. Images of minors who have committed heinous crimes or have been victims of the most brutal ones are on display for all to see. Conventional media may have tried to protect the dignity of the young from being displayed as an entertainment commodity, but social media has no communal conscience.
Newsrooms today still have the somewhat sanitized protection of the editor and now competes with the unedited and limitless world of news gatherers who reside in virtual reality, where reality is in constant flux. Traditional media not wanting to be left out, of course, had no choice but to hitch a ride on the wagon. They too are in space searching out and producing imperial news many times faster than we can consume. And the power to communicate, with its many layers of meaning, has seen the limitless globalization of mass media converge into the limited hands of the few.
If I were not reminded that this revolution all started a couple of decades ago, I really could not remember the changes taking place. Today it seemed to have been seamless with all its greys and wrinkles blending into the world of media perfect imperfections.
Has the world wide web turned media into a virtual wild wild west with no laws? Is it a price we must pay for the right to know? You are the members of the jury.The virtual jury.
The early years of media saw the formation of news gathering agencies. Their role included reporting on events and distributing the stories to other media houses without the resources to have reporters beyond their local boundaries. These were viewed as bastions of accuracy and credible news.
The New York Associated Press was created in 1848. This cooperative was a profit sharing arrangement for the members, that was formed to share the cost of gathering foreign news by telegraph. This agency eventually became today's Associated Press (AP). Another privately owned American organization that was established in 1884 was United Press, later United Press International (UPI), that used wire service. Across the Atlantic in London, the Reuters agency was established as an independent, international agency in 1851. Interestingly, the English were the first to report on the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
And of course 'we thing', Caribbean News Agency (CANA) was established in 1976 by some members of the media as a regional agency spring boarding from its predecessor Reuters Caribbean. Members shared their local news with CANA who in turn distributed it among the regional membership. In 2000, CANA joined forces with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union ((CBU) to create the Caribbean Media Corporation, headquartered in Barbados.
Enter social media and a revolution in news took place. Everyone with a recording device and internet access has a newsroom.The purist maintained that there must be order, that news MUST be checked and double checked. Or that sources must be credible and reliable. But with the arrival of millions of 'citizen journalists' across the globe, social media such as Face book, Youtube and Twitter have removed any filter that traditionally ensured editing, accuracy, credibility and ethical behavior.
But who cares. Long before any news team could arrive, several citizens would have captured the images, and the news stories are transmitted before the first spark of a forest fire is blown by the wind into nature's Gehenna. Newsrooms now rely more on online sources from across the planet than before to keep them informed not just with verbal updates, but taped uploads of police brutality, dead bodies, Arab spring uprising images, blooming flowers and images of a beautiful Tobago sunset by sea.
But what about the protection of the innocent? New media have no friends or enemies. They got it. We get it. Images of minors who have committed heinous crimes or have been victims of the most brutal ones are on display for all to see. Conventional media may have tried to protect the dignity of the young from being displayed as an entertainment commodity, but social media has no communal conscience.
Newsrooms today still have the somewhat sanitized protection of the editor and now competes with the unedited and limitless world of news gatherers who reside in virtual reality, where reality is in constant flux. Traditional media not wanting to be left out, of course, had no choice but to hitch a ride on the wagon. They too are in space searching out and producing imperial news many times faster than we can consume. And the power to communicate, with its many layers of meaning, has seen the limitless globalization of mass media converge into the limited hands of the few.
If I were not reminded that this revolution all started a couple of decades ago, I really could not remember the changes taking place. Today it seemed to have been seamless with all its greys and wrinkles blending into the world of media perfect imperfections.
Has the world wide web turned media into a virtual wild wild west with no laws? Is it a price we must pay for the right to know? You are the members of the jury.The virtual jury.
