Finally a Positive

We are down to the business end of the semester and our last Online Journalism lecture.

This post is going to cover the ideals of Graham Cairns, a QUT tutor, freelance journalist, travel writer, podcaster and blogger. His lecture put a positive spin on our future and gave all of us budding journos a little sign of hope.

He started by saying that it really isn't all doom and gloom, referring to the Pew Research Centre's study on the Growth of Digital Reporting. This research shows that whilst the traditional print jobs are falling there is a rise in native digital news. Sites such as the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed are now creating their own content, which means more jobs.

"Many digital outlets are working to fill reporting gaps created by the strain on resources at traditional outlets—from niche topic areas like education to international coverage to local community news to investigative journalism," said Mark Jurkowitz from Pew.

Graham then went on to ask us where we got most of our news from. An overwhelming amount said Facebook and Twitter as social media now plays an imperative role in how news reaches audiences. He said that technology has allowed the idea of the citizen journalist but is beneficial as there is a healthy appetite for news.

The big change for journalism has been funding models as we now see subscription services compared to the traditional native advertising. This leads to the idea of paying for podcasts as several US companies begin to introduce subscription models.

Like any technological industry, journalism continues to change but we shouldn't be afraid of that.

A bunch of high profile Australian and international journalists met in Sydney a couple of weeks ago for the 2016 Future Forum. They discussed the appetite for change, the need to experiment and finding news ways to tell compelling stories. The prestigious event speakers, like Graham, continued to reiterate their excitement for the future and endless possibilities technology allows us to achieve.

#ashleighdwan #beyondthestory #journalism #grahamcairns