TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM Vs ONLINE JOURNALISM

In a time where blogging is considered journalism and thousands of websites are being built daily; it seems that traditional journalism, may be in danger of becoming extinct. All forms of information are being sited on the internet; anyone with a computer can obtain the latest news on Google, which is updated almost down to the minute. So if online journalism is supposedly quicker, cheaper, and more convenient, how the hell can a traditional journalist survive besides just going with the flow and adapting their style of writing for an on line audience?

With the advent of the internet, a growing number of people have been reading the news and other happenings around the globe online. This actually serves as a threat to newspapers and its reporters, who practice traditional journalism. But what is the difference between traditional journalism and online journalism?

First and foremost, the major difference is the medium used for information dissemination. Traditional journalism disseminates information through printed materials, such as the newspapers, and other broadcasting equipment like the television and radio.  Online journalism, on the other hand, has its articles published in the internet.

For online journalism, the writer or journalist writes his articles on his web log (blog).  Some online journalists are writers not employed in any media company.  Some online journalists also do not gain any profit from their articles. Being unemployed, they do not have any deadlines to beat when posting an article. The traditional journalist, on the other hand, writes his articles to be published in a newspaper.  Whether they are working as a freelance writer or under a media company, they get paid for their articles and have deadlines to beat.

The length of the articles posted also differs. In online journalism, the writer can write a lengthy article, while in traditional the writer has limited space for his article.

Also, in online journalism internet users only get to read news articles with a stable internet connection. While in traditional journalism, people get to be updated with the latest happenings without going online.

Today, writers and journalists can use multimedia elements for online journalism like as text, graphics, sound, motion picture, animation, video, 3D etc, but in traditional journalism they can’t do these types of practices.

In Online journalism, readers can comment or can give their feedback instantly on that particular article or some other write ups, but in traditional journalism, reader’s response is too delayed and limited reader’s comments are published in Traditional journalism.

In Online Journalism, information is regularly updated by minute to minute, as they happen. While on the other hand, in Traditional Journalism, it takes time, like as in newspaper, if something is happened after the publishing of that day’ newspaper, that happening will be published on the next day’ newspaper.

Online Journalism is an evolution; it’s even easier to get published online. However, I honestly don’t think that it can replace the concreteness of print or traditional journalism practices etc. As long as print is making money traditional journalism is here to stay.