If you work in any media, the changes we’re witnessing over the past several years have been unprecedented. In a short time, the Internet and and other collaborative technologies are shifting the foundations of the entire industry. Publishers and media organizations from all over the world are dizzy with adapting to the changes too. Some have cut staff and others are still confused about the state of the industry as a whole and what it means for our culture.
Last night, I watched FrontLine’s “News War” on PBS and they have produced a wonderful documentary along with the UC Berkley Graduate School of Journalism that should be a must for anyone interested in media, new technologies and the history of journalism and where things are headed.
I can’t say that this program is an oracle for the future, but it has the most balanced and informative collection of interviews of publishers, editors, media personalities, journalists and innovators all gathered into one program that spans four hours. You can catch the show in High-def or regular broadcast television over the next few weeks or watch it online for free!
Although I found myself more interested in the innovations and the new technologies that have come along to challenge our industry, I came away with the program with a tremendous amount of respect for the journalists and the newsrooms who share their passion for the importance of journalism to our culture and despite the trends of current Internet ventures, journalists and reporters still have tremendous relevance. How that shapes out over the next few years and how it’s delivered and to what effect is still murky, but that untold ending makes this industry all the more intriguing.
News reporting and modern journalism has a century-old legacy at the most and the power and the importance of this vocation and field of study has never been more intriguing. The documentary gives a great history of where we have come from, interviewed the names and faces we only read about and follows the developments of the Dot Com era with precise and immediate relevance.