Journalism: Is it dying or evolving?


Today, I had a rather depressing conversation with an older neighbor. She was asking all the typical questions most 20-something-year-olds get: How’s school? What are you studying? What do you want to do? The conversation was light until I answered a question with “I’m a journalism major.” I was met with a passive aggressive, “Well … isn’t that a dying field, sweetie? Anyone can be a journalist now.”

My heart sank a little and every fiber of my being wanted to rip out the flowerbed that judgmental woman was watering. I held my breath.

Social media, YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and other blogging sites are available to anyone who can afford the technology. While even I can admit that the prospect of iPhone-wielding teenagers becoming the majority of our news sources is fairly terrifying, the notion of journalism dying just because there are more means of “reporting” is, frankly, a cop out.

The way I see it is that journalism is not dying, but the playing field is getting increasingly larger and so is the number of players. The problem therein is competition. We need writers that can pull audiences away from what their sorority sister re-tweeted, what’s being shared on Facebook or re-posted on Instagram. I do believe that the challenge is not simply no one caring- its that everyone has media-induced attention deficit disorder.

The field of journalism is still alive and kicking-fighting actually. Fighting through the hoards of meaningless personality quizzes, “like if you agree” posts, and celebrity gossip to get to what is happening in the real world.