Traditional Online vs Online Journalism

Online Journalism is not simply online news but it covers much diverse area that include online newspapers, websites, weblogs, bulletin boards and chat rooms , where the audiences read, watch, listen, discuss and debate ideas and thought that concern public interest (Millison , 1999; Allen, 200; Hall, 2001; Wolk, 2001; Deuze, 2003; Gunter, 2003). Traditional online is news or story that being covers by newspaper, radio, television, etc which are alternatives to the mainstream media that owned and controlled by big businesses and individuals and the purpose is to deliver a true news or story to the public. There are differences between the online journalism and traditional online.

The first difference is the source. If we can see, the traditional online get source from a reliable person where the source is usually true, accurate and reliable. The traditional online always known for the accurate news so before they publish any news or story they must make sure the news is 100% true and accurate. But, it is different to online journalism because the news or story can be written by anyone and it’s hard to make sure whether the source is true and accurate. For example, the blogger can write anything they want without care about the accuracy and this can create slender and can affect a person, government and the worst is it can affect our country.

The second difference between this two is the access. The traditional online like newspaper, radio and television can give an easy access because now days, public have television and radio at their house so it is easy for them to get an information and even they don’t have television and radio they still can get the news from the newspaper which is cheaper and always available. While traditional give easy access, it is different to online journalism. To get news and information from online journalism, the public must have a computer because all the information will be publish at website, blogs, etc. It is true that now is 2010 but not all the public have an access to use internet like people who live in rural country who don’t have a computer, so it is impossible for them to get the information. The traditional online provide good access compared to the online journalism.

Traditional journalism guides the public through a linear narrative but the online journalism lets the public become participants, as they click their way through a hyperlinked set of pages. Narrative momentum and a strong editorial voice pull the public through a linear narrative. Manifold navigation pathways, branching options, and hyperlinks encourage the reader or participant to continue to explore various narrative threads assembled by the reporter/writer/editor. A web of interlinked pages is also an ideal mechanism to give reader or participants access to a library of source documents and background information that form the foundation of an extensive journalistic investigation. The public just can watch and listen if they choose the traditional online but they can participate if they choose online journalism.

While audiences for online journalism remain smaller than the audiences for mass media journalism, online journalists have the same influence on their audiences that mass media journalists have by choosing which stories to report; by choosing to tell the story from a particular point of view. A crime story told from the point of view of the victim will elicit a different reaction from the same story told from the point of view of the criminal, for example, whether that story is presented in the morning newspaper, on the 6 o'clock TV news, or on the Web. The Web's interactivity and hyper linking gives the journalist more opportunities to examine multiple points of view in a particular piece than traditional, analog media. The lack of serious space limitations permits online journalists to develop a story more fully and to publish source documents and background material.

Either traditional online or online journalism it have it own advantages and disadvantages and the public have a choice to pick between this two because at the end, the purpose of the existence of either traditional and online journalism is to deliver the news to the public.

Online Journalism is less credible compared to Mainstream Media

Now days, there lots of new alternative beside the mainstream media (television, radio and newspapers) that play it role in delivering a news. One of the new alternatives is call online journalism that covers a blog, bulletin board, chat rooms and others. But, online journalism has been criticized as less credible compared to the mainstream media that has been in our community for a long time. There must be a reason why online journalism being categorized as less credible.

The first reason is online journalism did not always provide a true fact or story compared to the mainstream media. Blog is one of the online journalism methods and now days everyone can have a blog because it is easy to create. In their blog they can write anything that the want but it’s difficult to make sure weather what they write is true or not. It can turn into slanders and this can create arguments that can make our country chaos. While, the mainstream media always provide a true story because it usually gets the information from source that can be trusted.

The second reason why online journalism is less credible is because it doesn’t use an ethics in writing the news or story. People who involve in online journalism like blogs can write anything without following the ethics that has been set by the government. Bloggers can say anything that they want because there is no gatekeeper to control what kind of news or story that going to publish and it written in a much less structured way than articles and personal opinions and biases can be exposed. This is different from mainstream media because anything that they want to publish must based on the ethics or they will faced some bad consequence from the government plus the gatekeeper will control and make sure the news that going to publish will not make any harm towards readers / viewers.

Another issue that comes up is that while one of the major advantages to online journalism is the speed with which news can be pumped out to the public the rate of errors increases. When information is flowing through so fast, and stories are being pounded out in a hurry, carelessness and oversight can come into play. It has been said that in the need for speed, steps can be missed, and copy editing can go down the tubes. This leads to distrust and a loss of credibility from the public but this kind of mistakes will not going to happen to the mainstream media.

The last reason is online journalism can bring harm towards the readers / viewers. If we look back at the first until third reason we can say that online journalism can cause harm because the information or fact that being told is not true plus they did not use an appropriate ethics. The mainstream media will not make this kind of mistakes because they must make sure the readers / viewers satisfied with the story being provided to them because in mainstream media readers / viewers are important.

All the following reasons can show that online journalism is less credible compared to the mainstream media. To stay survive, online journalism must make sure it provide fact and information that is true and accurate.