Digital communication systems are changing the future of journalism. Traditional limitations of time, space, medium, and place are rapidly disappearing. The new media made possible by digital communication systems will make it easier for people to connect with information sources. Although traditional journalism has lost much of its authority in the new Information Age, there will continue to be a need for high-quality reporting and interpretation of the news.
Granted, the influence of journalists has diminished in the past few decades. Recently, Vanity Fair magazine published its annual listing of the fifty leaders of the Information Age, and only one was a journalist working for a mainstream news organization (Fulton 20). Journalists used to hold a monopoly over what types of news reached the public; with the growth of the Internet, this is no longer the case. The problem with the Internet, however, is the question of the credibility of information. A college student can design a Web page that is every bit as impressive as a large company like Newsweek. As one journalist notes, "You must know the source of the data; how it got in the computer; and all its drawbacks" (McIntosh 23). Many of the new competitors of traditional journalism have no journalistic background at all.
Journalism helps the public make sense of its world. One of the drawbacks of the digital communication revolution is that it has made available a glut of information that is difficult for the layperson to decipher. Journalists report not only the facts, but the significance of these facts: " . . . dealing with complexity, offering sophistication, using narrative and explanatory journalism to provide layers of understanding . . . providing the background, perspective, and context to give a depth of enlightenment . . . " (King 399). If journalists concentrate on their traditional strengths, they will be able to survive the uncertainty of the fu...