DO WE STILL NEED JOURNALISTS IN THIS AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA?

Social media channels used by journalists

THE NEED OF JOURNALISTS IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

In order to provide an answer to the above question, weed to know the meaning of the two important terms in the question, which are "journalist" and "social media". In comparing and differentiating these two terms, we will surely obtain an answer to the above question.
A journalist is a reporter who professionally does living reporting on news and current events. He collects, writes and distributes news or information through the newspaper, television and radio. Journalists reports the way the news has been obtained without giving any judgments or opinions of their own. He or she is also a keeper of a person's journal and writes in it regularly. Journalist is one whose occupation originally requires only writing in the printed press, but now that we are living in this new age of social media, I think they need to renew their forms of reporting news and this new form can be through the use of the social media as their platform. The types of journalists is also increasing in numbers to fit into this new age of social media.

Social media, a means of reaching out to the world.

Why you can not ignore social media?

Social media has been used to describe the type of media that is based on conversation and interaction between people online and still remains the same. Social media is also refer to as the new alternative media. In this new age, social media can give information or news at the speed of light. Examples of social media channels are blogs, podcasts and wikis.
In my own opinion, I think we still do need journalists in this age of social media because they are the ones who obtain the news professionally and delivered them to the public. News of today on most social media channels are being published by journalists. Although the different social media does provide reports on news, but there is a difference between the journalist and social media. Journalists are physically present where the news is taking place and the social media are not, but it is the journalist that captures the pictures and videos of the news where necessary and distribute it to the social media channels. Thus, the pictures can be published in a printed press or through social media whilst the videos can only be published on the social media channels.

 

New media versus traditional or old media.

The other reason is simply because social media is the new digital media age which is based on the interaction of people from different races online. Since journalists are only required to do their writing in the printed press, in this situation, interaction is limited. Whilst if the journalist presents his or her writing in the social media, there is more room for interaction and in return, the journalist gets feed backs in the speed of light. In the case wherein one of the example of a social media is a blog, has been referred to as an online journal and can take different formats such as, videos, texts or photo blogging. Journalists can therefore utilise blog as one of their main platform to present information. It is therefore clear that journalists are definitely needed in this age of social media because there is a lot of opportunities for them to make their job less complicated. Different types of social media are being introduced at least once in a year and therefore provide the platform for journalists to publish their news and at the same time reaching a higher population of readers. Whether they decided to publish their news in a video, text or photo blogging format, readers will be able to leave their comments immediately and in return, the journalist will be able to analyse each readers' opinion which leads to the creating of interaction among the two.

Global penetration of social platform by age groups.

 I am convinced that journalists are definitely needed in this age of social media because if you take a look at the graph above illustrating the growth of social media network users, it is clear that the social media thus provide a huge opportunity for journalists to publish their stories and at the same time reaching different people. 

Journalism and social media.

   
My question, is do you agree as a reader that journalists are still needed in the age of social media?