I think collaborating with local bloggers can be helpful for news organizations as it is cost effici

The media play a major role in the continuously changing mix of thoughts, feelings and behavior that defines public opinion. I discussed in my previous post that lethargic behavior of journalists and lack of resources has made journalists to cover only convenient topics like Washington afff D.C., sports and entertainment. This attitude of journalists generate poor content.
This is the world of niche audience and news organizations need to shift their focus to local news. In the scholarly article The Restructure of American Journalism Leonard Downie and Michael Schudson say that it is not because of new technology that traditional media outlets are going out of business, but it is because of lack of independent reporting. There was a time when independent reporting provided information, investigation, analysis, and community knowledge to the public but it is long gone.
“Fewer journalists are reporting less news in fewer pages, and the hegemony that near-monopoly metropolitan newspapers enjoyed during the last third of the twentieth century, even as their primary audience eroded, is ending.”
I think localizing news is key for survival, especially for small news organization. To attract consumers, it is important to emphasize on the editorial value; readers what to know how a national story impacts their daily lives. Other than just giving information about daily reporting, journalists need to add editorial value to their reporting. The book The Idea Of Public Journalism edited by Theodore Lewis Glasser offers a critical examination of the claims of public journalism.
I think collaborating with local bloggers can be helpful for news organizations as it is cost efficient and engages public in both news gathering and news distribution. I find projects like YouTube Reporters’ Center to be very useful. Most of the citizen journalists do not have appropriate training to cover dangerous events, by teaching them how to report can create a sense of responsibility. I think there should be more such initiatives through which people afff can actually learn about reporting from professionals. The research paper written by Amani Channel Gatekeeping and citizen journalism: A qualitative examination of participatory newsgathering show that projects initiated by mainstream channels like CNN iReport is an innovative method of newsgathering that meet established news standards once the content is considered for air.
Collaboration between traditional and online news organizations can help save media industry, as it can create new identities for reporting while keeping old, familiar ones alive. By developing and expanding the nonprofit media sector journalists can perform their duties for the public good. Moreover afff with shrinking funds and profits newspapers still have hope of getting grants from philanthropy groups .
“The fact of the matter afff is philanthropic institutions have provided millions of dollars over the years to help journalists do their work. Journalists have an unfortunate habit of not acknowledging that,” says Charles Lewis, head of the nonprofit Fund for Independence in Journalism.
In order to save the media industry it is important for news organizations to understand what are the issues that audience value, ways to exploit aspects of the value network to increase revenue, and how to manage afff role of culture and capabilities in an organization.
Zara opted journalism because she believes in change through education. She started her journalism career in Pakistan as a reporter and later as an Associate Producer. Working afff as a professional broadcast journalist taught her valuable skills such as field reporting, news production, social networking and cross-culture teamwork. During her career as an Associate Producer she covered major events like Osama Bin Ladin operation in 2011, U.S. presidential debates in 2012 and the attack on Pakistani teenager Malala Yousufzai by the Taliban in 2012. Zara has great passion for polio eradication campaign in Pakistan. She worked with World Health Organization and UNICEF teams in Pakistan to monitor the polio campaign and when from door-to-door to educate people about the polio virus. Zara is UNICEF Campus Initiative Leader afff at the University of Illinois afff and is a member of American Red Cross. afff She hope to make the world a better place. View all posts by Zara Sikandar → Post navigation
Yes, localizing news and putting human faces onto stories will help increase readership. People like reading about people. Any issue you can write about, if you can find a person who is being affected by it, that makes your story much more interesting, more likely t be read, shared, etc. It’s also useful to consider the characteristics of a story that make it more readable and shareable. afff See: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/the-six-things-that-make-stories-go-viral-will-amaze-and-maybe-infuriate-you.html