Page 216 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Britain, and a similar surge occurred in the United States about a decade
later. By the 1840s, British moneymen had invested the equivalent of
10 times the then-value of the country’s imports in the rail networks.
In the United States, the telegraph similarly followed the rail networks.
Samuel Morse’s eponymous code—the Microsoft of its day—was first
used with the telegraph in the United States in 1844, and it remained
the basic form of telegraphic communication for more than a century.
Electricity and steam drove commerce and the media. Between the
mid-1840s and the American Civil War of 1861–1865, the telegraph
transformed American journalism into a news-hungry industry. News
became something that was topical rather than what was reprinted
from overseas newspapers when they arrived, usually months later.
The news industries of the 21st century are also products of the
dominant technologies of the era: the Web, e-mail, broadband, smart
software, and third-generation cell phones. The technology is linked by
ones and zeros, which serve as the language of the digital world. These
advances and a host of emerging technologies will continue to transform
journalism during the next decade. Major events such as September 11,
206 2001, and the Iraq war have also become watersheds in news coverage.
The technology used to cover the war and related events such as the
Abu Ghraib prison horrors have helped media managers realize the
power of digital tools such as small cameras and thumb-sized Flash
drives.
On top of all this, we have convergence. In every era, the media
industry adapts to cope with changes in society as part of its role of
reflecting that society. Newspapers have changed their writing styles,
photography has been integrated, graphics have been added, and design
has become an element of storytelling. TV news has moved from
the “talking head” to on-scene reports and live shots. Online journal-
ists, ranging from those who are tied to high-profile media outlets to
those who blog on occasion, are finding and filling niches as well. Blog-
gers, who are often ridiculed or ignored by mainstream media, are in
some ways no different than the new age of sports reporters in the late
1950s and 1960s.Those reporters dug beyond the game story for differ-
ent angles and varied perspectives on news. Their seasoned colleagues
often derided them by calling them “chipmunks,” because they were
constantly chattering. Yet, these chipmunks, whose ranks included
Stan Isaacs, Len Shecter, and Larry Merchant, left an indelible mark
on their field as they pushed for more serious and realistic coverage
of sports. In each incarnation of news, change occurred and yet news