What is the Future?

Within the Future of Journalism website is an article titled 'What is Old is New'by Jonathan Este, an examination of the media 140 conference which took place after the Future of Journalism Summit. The picture Este paints is that of two very seperate worlds within the conference, that of the journalists and those belonging to the new media movement. Yet while there was approximately 50/50 representing and speaking from each area, he states that journalists "seemed like something of a curiosity - put up on the stage for the amusement and at times ridicule of the people in the auditorium."

While journalists are working to accommodate these changes, there is still difficulty in adapting to these due to the way in which journalists are trained, and on the other side of this those involved in the new media have assumptions of what journalists do, as Este states "there's a smug assumption on the part of many new media people that journalists sit around in newsrooms making things up, writing obviously slanted stories, suppressing information and generally being corporate beasts."

He notes that there were not enough presenters there that had managed to work on the line between traditional journalism and the new media. Is it possible to really work in the middle, or will there always be a sway in one direction or the other? Even when journalists take on blogs or other styles of new media to present their stories, do they view it in a different light than other media that is presented?

Media140 is a website that is concerned with the future of social technologies.Within it is a series of blogs concerned with the ways in which journalism will be affected by the rise of social media within new media technologies and approaches. One of these blogs that provided an insight into how the journalists have been impacted by new media is Modern Journalists Toolkit to Cover Live Events, in which Neerav Bhatt has outlined what a modern journalist must actually have as a part of their toolkit to ensure that they are able to meet modern demands.


This shows that perhaps journalists now longer have a choice as to whether they will embrace new media, that it is essential.