06.10.09
Believer, Skeptic or Just Don’t Know
by Tarah Jakubiak, Professional Development Seminar Committee
The world is becoming a smaller place. We have known this for years, thanks to the internet. However, social media has brought this reality one step further. The US Air flight 1549, which crash-landed in the Hudson River, was first brought to us by Twitter. In other words, we heard about it first from a non-traditional news source.
So what does that mean for the future of traditional news sources? What about the viewers? What does that mean for future generations? Will they become dependent on social media as a news outlet? Will they only trust social media? What then happens if the news is misrepresented in this format?
To answer the last question – no matter what type of media news outlet, there has been and there will always be errors, misprints, typos or misrepresentations. So why pick on social media? Possibly because it’s new, it’s unknown or people are afraid of change. To anyone who follows social media outlets religiously – they are believers, to anyone who follows them occasionally they are skeptics and to those non-followers- they don’t know what to think.
Do you know which group you fall into? Come make up your own mind on September 10th at the Professional Development Seminar “What now? Getting news out in a newspaper-less age?”
Got an opinion? We would love to hear from you – either post a comment, come to the event or contact anyone on the board committee: Elizabeth McKinney, APR; John Luecke, APR; Beth Bartlett, Samantha Hargrove or Tarah Jakubiak.