by Cody Hodge

Created on: April 15, 2009

Lets get one thing straight, and that is the Internet is not killing print journalism. Print journalism killed print journalism, and it wasn't all the fault of the print journalism industry either. Listen, who wants to wait until the morning for a story that they can read about on the Internet as soon as the story breaks? And while the Internet hasn't changed the fact that all news outlets tend to be biased for one side or the other, at least the Internet has allowed the reader to have access to more voices.

I hate reading the newspaper! Why? I hate how half the newspaper is just garbage. I hate how the only sections I ever end up reading are the sports, and sometimes the politics sections in the Sunday newspaper. In all honesty, the only thing that the newspaper is good for is coupons. Everything else I can just get on-line anyway, and it is also free to read the newspaper on-line, and you can give feedback on the Internet too.

As I said before, you can get more voices on the Internet, and can get more papers at one time from the Internet. I can read the Buffalo News, the L.A Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and even my own local paper at the same time. Most articles from a paper can be found just by typing them into Google. If I am getting sick of the Times, or the Post, and think they are leaning a little too far on an issue, I can look at other papers.

Before the Internet, the printed papers got all the attention, and there wasn't a whole lot of competition. I don't even really think you can say the quality of journalism suffered either. The Washington Post made up stories long before the advent of the Internet, so you can't say that the people who blog for a living aren't journalists, or can't check facts. If anything it has allowed more people the freedom to truly speak out on issues.

The Internet is truly a revolution in journalism. Instead of being scared of it, or cry about newspapers being killed off because of the Internet, I say that we are in a golden age of journalism. If you ever watch the episode of The Simpson's where Mr. Burns buys out all the media outlets in Springfield, only to be brought down by Lisa Simpson, you will understand what I mean. The media should be available to all people, not just Rupert Murdoch.

The Internet isn't killing anything, it is just forcing people to change a little bit. You can still buy the newspaper, but now if you want access to more news, you can read the paper on-line too. I like the fact that I can see what people in L.A are thinking, or in Miami, or in Oregon, all while sitting at home in New York. I also like that the average citizen can be a journalist too, and while I don't think Joe the Plumber really did himself any favors, it was nice to see an individual able to get interviews. Isn't that what this country was really founded on, the individual?

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