File:12 - Pitts Article Response - Out of Date.doc

World Cultures - Notebook Page 12 - Pitts Article - Response

I think the role of journalism is changing over time, especially since this article was written. News is moving quicker now that it is online. On the internet, articles need to be out very quickly, losing the ability to tell a complicated and deep personal story. Also, people also don’t have the time to read and fully understand those stories. Through RSS we can read hundreds of news sources in one place, often only glossing over the headlines, and occasionally skimming the article. We never slow down from our frantic pace of life. Journalism is becoming de-humanized and losing the art it once had, as speed and facts matter.

Newspaper circulation is dropping, forcing papers to cut their staff. This leads papers to just being a reprint of internet stories with marginal content added. And that content is shrinking all the time. Even TV news is being affected. Local news was once the most profitable show for a local affiliate, now its losing ad revenue to the internet quickly. As a result, news rooms are closing, like the WPHL-17 station a few months ago. Others are shifting more to the internet, and cutting down on the human-interest stories, as I read a few days ago in what I think was the Inquire, and shifting more to hard-news to compete with the new forms of news. Even 24-hr cable news channels don’t do these sorts of human interest stories. They just read the headlines, and sometimes get some experts to comment on it.

The only place that seems to remain all right is the long-format TV shows, like Dateline and Larry King Live, news magazines, such as TIME and Newsweek, and increasingly, blogs and podcast for long format interviews and discussions that don’t need to bend around commercials.

This is how I believe that this speech by Mr. Pitts is out of date. People just want hard news, unless they go to a special long-format paper or show.

World Cultures Basics/Introduction Unit

Intro/Basics - Africa - Middle East - South Asia - China - Japan - Korea - Latin America

World Cultures Daily Questions

Notebook

• Page 1 - Syllabus
• Page 2 - Notebook Grade Sheet
• Page 3 - Table of Contense
• Page 4 - Daily Questions
• Page 5 - Historiography Perspectives
• Page 6 - How to Gloss
• Page 7 - China AIDS Article
• Page 8 - "Humility, not Arrogance will help us after 9/11"
• Page 9 - 9/11 The Path Not Taken
• Page 9b - Malsow's Pyramid of Needs
• Page 10 - Circle Discussion, Page 2, Page 3
  • Page 11 - News Articles for Categories Project
• Page 12 - Pitts Article, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Response - "Out of Date"
• Page 13 - Culture Notes
• Page 14 - Temporary Marriages
• Page 15 - Graph Assignment
• Page 17 - Pitts Article Circle Discussion, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

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Projects

• World Cultures News Articles for Categories
• Pitts Article about News

Test/Quizes

• Intro Quiz, Page 2, Page 3