Amateur Hour; the New Yorker

Amateur Hour; Journalism without journalists.
by Nicholas Lemann August 7, 2006
The New Yorker

If blogging is really a form of journalism, everyone in our English class, probably everyone in our school is a journalist. Amateur hour compares internet journalism and old media? As the accessibility of internet has increased, many forms of media have moved, journalism being one of them. With this move, “citizen journalism” was created. Citizen journalists write about what is going on in the places where they live and work. They could be compared to the writers of pamphlets and periodicals of the early 17th end 18th century, and their mediums are/were both mass mediums and easily accessible. In America journalism started during the Colonial times, in the form of pamphlets, and developed into news papers. Internet has several different functions, which make it so popular, but it is still not seen as a real threat to the old media. None of the things accomplished by internet have outreached the things accomplished by the old media. Yet internet has huge potential, and many think that the freedom the internet has compared to the old press (politically biased, only viewing one side of the story, out of touch with ordinary people’s concerns ect.) is one of the main reasons behind its potential. Even though it hasn’t yet achieved the things the old media has, it has achieved some great things, but is it really as good as people say? Internet journalism generally occurs by accident, by someone being at the right place, at the right time. Another thing about internet journalism is that it generally only reaches a small audience, as the things they talk about are specific (an area or a topic). An important part of journalism is reporting, but with reporting you need reporters and it seems that they haven’t moved along. Journalism is moving to the internet, but for it to really work it should not leave the professionals behind.