Online journalism in South Africa.
Online journalism is defined as the reporting of facts when produced and distributed via the internet. It tackles the pressing question of how to apply fundamental journalism skills to the online medium. It provides an essential guide to the Internet as a research and publishing tool. In particular, it examines how to forge key journalism skills with the distinctive qualities of the World Wide Web to provide compelling web content.
With an increase in access to the Internet, digital or online journalism in South Africa has spread to include a strong focus on user-generated content, with traditional news media using Twitter and other social media to generate reader feedback. Similarly, the Mail & Guardian ‘Thought leader’ blog, originally designed for so called J-bloggers, is another example of the ‘convergence’ between journalism and social media.
http://www.mg.co.za/ is actually for the intellects. The contents therein do not fit any individual but the middle-class who are educated and are interested in cutting-edge news coverage. It gives in-depth news angles.
And there comes www.sabcnews.com/ which happens to be everyone’s favourite because it covers any news. The content is not enticing, what you get from other news sites is also in www.sabcnews.com/. It’s as if the media houses discuss their news angles and responding before uploading their stories.
IOL brings breaking news from its newsrooms across the country, sport and the latest in entertainment. The so-called South Africa's Premier News Source with In-depth coverage of local and international news. With its independence nature, it tackles every story side. The most surprising this about all these news sites is their same content nature.
My view on online journalism.
It got me thinking. When will South African online journalism “come of age”? I am not for one second saying it should involve a negative incident like that of The New Republic. What I am saying is that online journalism has yet to make some kind of impact in this country. But as far as news goes, South African online journalism is a long way off from “coming of age”. Online is beginning to show better revenue streams as a result of the upturn in online advertising. It means bigger budgets and more staff, which media groups are not willing to do.
The question that has troubled my mind for some is that why all online news sites has the same content. You visit www.sabcnews.com/, www.iol.co.za/ or http://www.mg.co.za/ it’s the same content over and over.
Where is the online scoop? When last did people refer to a story from an online publication as an exclusive? Has it ever happened in South Africa? The Sunday Times and Mail & Guardian, as well titles out of the Independent group and Media24, regularly break big stories that send the media industry into a flurry. Has this ever happened in the online world?
South Africa’s online publications simply won’t scoop the big, exclusive stories reason being that it does not get to reach every person. Let’s be frank here, how many people are able to surf the net and read stories? It’s only a small fraction of people citizens that actually have access to internet. Traditional journalism or print has made its way to the top because physically people are able to read the news. They can buy in the nearest stores.
It may be that online news staff complements are small because there is no budget for big armies of journalists on specific news beats. Or it may have something to do with the fact that Sapa and the other wires do such a good job on volume; it’s all too easy to rely on them and do little else
Online news publications in South Africa are too reliant on wire services like Sapa, I-Net, AFP, AP and Reuters. Has anyone noticed that the top five online news publications often publish and lead with identical stories from these wires? So much for original journalism.
The fast and vast growth of the Internet and World Wide Web has spawned the newest medium for journalism, online journalism. The speed at which news can be disseminated on the Web and the profound penetration to anyone with a computer and Internet connection have greatly increased the quantity and variety of news reports available to the public.
At the moment, to be blunt, online journalism compared to traditional media journalism, is bad. And until online starts to publish more original stories, it’s not going to be taken seriously.
Hyperlinks to online news sites
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