(This articles was written by S.M.Mehdi Hassan and Razib Ahmed and published in June 2012, in The Monthly TechWorld Bangladesh Magazine)
Since the Second World War, most people around the world more or less got used to getting their news from newspapers, radio and television. In the last few years, there is a gradual shift in this matter as people are spending a lot of time in Internet in almost every corner of earth. As a result, print newspapers have started to suffer at least in USA and to some extent in Europe. Now, there is a new trend in journalism and it is called Online Journalism. The first casualty is the printed newspaper industry and after a few years, there will be hardly any daily printed newspaper.
Since the Second World War, most people around the world more or less got used to getting their news from newspapers, radio and television. In the last few years, there is a gradual shift in this matter as people are spending a lot of time in Internet in almost every corner of earth. As a result, print newspapers have started to suffer at least in USA and to some extent in Europe. Now, there is a new trend in journalism and it is called Online Journalism. The first casualty is the printed newspaper industry and after a few years, there will be hardly any daily printed newspaper.
Online Journalism is now gaining a lot of ground and in
Bangladesh, news websites are still not a major threat to the newspapers and
magazines but who knows within a decade when almost all of our educated people
will have access to Internet, the same thing can happen.
What is Online Journalism?
“Networked Publics,” University of Southern California, provides
the following definition of Online Journalism,
Online journalism refers to news content produced and/or
distributed via the Internet, particularly material created by journalists who
work for mainstream market driven news organizations. While blogs and other
emerging forms of online news communication are widely acknowledged as
significantly influencing mainstream news content both on and offline, they are
considered here a distinct phenomenon and treated under the category of
alternative media.
On Online Journalism,Veteran Silicon Valley journalist, Doug Millison,
says,
The simple answer is, of course, journalism as it is practiced
online.
Journalism is any non-fiction or documentary narrative that
reports or analyzes facts and events firmly rooted in time (either topical or
historical) which are selected and arranged by reporters, writers, and editors
to tell a story from a particular point of view. Journalism has traditionally
been published in print, presented on film, and broadcast on television and
radio. "Online" includes many venues. Most prominent is the World
Wide Web, plus commercial online information services like America Online.
Simple Internet email also plays a big role. Also important are CD-ROMs (often
included with a book) linked to a web site or other online venue, plus
intranets and private dial-up bulletin board systems.
He also mentioned some features of Online Journalism
- Real
time:
News can be published in real time. Online Journalists can provide
updating breaking news and events as they happen.
- Shifted
time:
Contents published online can be archived so that viewers can read them at
a later time.
- Multimedia: Online
Journalists can include images, music, sound, video etc.
- Interactivity:
- Online
Journalists can add hyperlinks to their writings. These links relate
their writings to other contents related to their subjects.
- Readers or
participants can respond instantly to materials published by online
journalists in the form of email, comment, and threaded discussion.
In “An Analysis of the Competing
Business Models of Online Journalism” Michael Fusco says,
If journalism is the art of documenting history,
then online journalism is the art and science that will allow humans to
document the future. During the past two decades, marvelous technological
advancements have allowed journalists to tell stories from new perspectives and
distribute them to wider audiences. While journalism on paper likely will last
at least for generations, a new set of tools has been created to help the news
industry better achieve its many social roles.
Decline of Print Media:
In the U.S., the newspaper industry is going through a tough
time. More and more people are now using Internet to get news and information.
In July last year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in America
published a report titled, “THE INFORMATION NEEDS OF COMMUNITIES The changing
media landscape in a broadband age.” The report said that as more and more
people were using Internet to access news, readers of newspaper declined
resulting in job losses in the newspaper industry. The report says:
- From 2005 to 2009, the advertising
revenue of the newspaper industry in the U.S. dropped 47 percent.
- Since 2009, staff at daily
newspapers shrunk by more than 25 percent. At this rate, some newspapers
would see half of their staffs go away in the next few years.
- Since 1985, reporting staffs of
newsmagazines almost came down to half.
- From 2007 to 20011, roughly 13,400
newspaper jobs were lost.
According to Rick Edmonds, researcher and writer on business and
journalism issues at Poynter Institute, between 2006 and 2009 daily newspaper
cut their annual editorial spending $1.6 billion on an average or more than a
quarter.
In April 2012, Gannett Inc., the largest newspaper publisher in
the U.S., released its first quarter results which revealed a 25 percent drop
in first quarter profit caused by the decline in advertisement revenue. The
company owns 82 daily newspapers including the popular USA Today. The company
observed an 8.3 percent drop in ad sales in the first quarter. The newspaper
company is losing ad revenues to Internet based companies like Facebook and
Google. The company is now focusing on developing digital assets.
In its report titled, “The State of the News Media 2012” The Pew
Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) revealed how the newspaper
industry in the U.S. is suffering. According to the report, of all the sectors
of the U.S. media, newspapers suffered the most last year. Between April to September last year, weekday
circulation of newspapers fell about 4% while Sunday circulation fell 1%.
It says, “Even more
critically, so did ad revenues. In 2011, losses in print advertising dollars
outpaced gains in digital revenue by a factor of roughly 10 to 1, a ratio even
worse than in 2010. When circulation and advertising revenue are combined, the
newspaper industry has shrunk 43% since 2000.”
Rise of Internet and
Online Journalism:
Internet is the new frontier for Journalists. The FCC report said
that from 2005 to 2009 visitors to newspaper websites increased dramatically
from 43.7 million unique monthly visitors to 70million and from 1.6 million
page views to 3 billion page views.
In their 2011 and 2012 report on the U.S. media industry, PEJ
revealed online audience observed major growth against network TV, local TV,
audio, cable TV, magazines and newspapers.
The 2011 report says,
In December 2010, 41% of Americans cited the internet as the
place where they got “most of their news about national and international
issues,” up 17% from a year earlier. When it came to any kind of news, 46% of
people now say they get news online at least three times a week, surpassing
newspapers (40%) for the first time.
Fig-1: Audience
growth in different media in 2009-2010 in the U.S. (Source: Pew Research
Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism)
The 2012 report says,
No matter the device, digital news consumption continued upward
in 2011. Monthly unique audience to the top news sites was up 17%, a similar
increase from 2009 to 2010, according to Nielsen Online. Seventeen of those 25
continue to be legacy news outlets.
Americans are now fully into the digital era. More than
three-quarters of U.S. adults own a laptop or desktop computer. On top of that,
44% now own a smartphone, and tablet ownership is now at 18%, up from just 11%
in the summer of 2011. News is a significant part of how people use these
devices. Some 51% of smartphone owners use that device to get news, as do 56%
of tablet owners. And nearly a quarter of the population, 23%, now gets news on
multiple digital devices, according to PEJ research…………….
Fig-2:
Internet audience growth in 2010-2011 in the U.S. (Source: Pew Research
Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism)
According to the recent study of The Audit Bureau of
Circulations (ABC), one in seven newspapers read in the U.S. is a digital one.
The organization said that from October 2011 to March 2012 14.2% of newspapers
were read as digital editions. Readers accessed these editions on their
smartphones and tablet PCs. Only a year ago, it was 8.66%. For the first time,
ABC released this figure and adopted a new approach to measure the number of
digital edition readers. The report revealed that The Wall Street Journal was
the most popular daily in the U.S. with a combined digital and print
circulation of 2.11million. Of this, more than half million were digital
editions.
Due to the popularity of digital editions, more and more
newspapers are now charging readers to access its online editions. About 300
newspapers in the U.S are charging readers for reading news on their web
portals. It is referred as “Metered Pay Walls.” Under this systems, the
newspaper will allow readers to read some of their articles online for free and
then charge them if they want to read more.
The FCC report also revealed that online news organizations are
growing rapidly in the U.S. and journalists, who lost their jobs, are joining
these organizations. All these are showing how Internet is growing. With the
rise of Internet Online Journalism will also become the mainstream
journalism.
In search of the Revenue
Model in Online Journalism
The biggest challenge for Online Journalism is to create a
sustainable of business model. Though the number of online readers is
increasing by leaps and bounds and amount of online advertising is also
increasing, no sustainable model has been created so far.
Till now, the newspaper never focused on Internet. Most of the
newspaper websites were free and they mainly depended on revenue generated from
print version. Currently, the number of hyper local news websites has increased
in the U.S. but these are not financially profitable. Many journalists work as
volunteers for these websites. The FCC report says:
Perhaps no area has been more
dramatically transformed than “hyperlocal”—coverage on the neighborhood or
block by block level. Even in the fattest-and-happiest days of traditional
media, they could not regularly provide news on such a granular level.
Professional media have been joined by a wide range of local blogs, email lists,
websites and the proliferation of local groups on national websites like
Facebook or Yahoo! For the most part, hyperlocally oriented websites and blogs
do not operate as profitable businesses, but they do not need to. This is
journalism as voluntarism—a thousand points of news.
In a survey conducted on 66 local news websites, it had been
revealed that half of the websites had an annual income of less than $50,000
and three quarters of the websites had an annual income of less than $100,000.
The Pew Research Report revealed that compared to 2010 amount of
online advertising increased 23%. According to eMarketer, a reputed marketing
research firm, online display ads generated $12.4 billion in revenue, a 24%
increase compared to last year. Here is a chart showing the condition ad
revenue in different media in 2011.
Fig-3: Growth
in Online Revenue in the U.S. (Source: Pew Research Center's Project for
Excellence in Journalism)
However, the rate of online advertisement is very low compared
to that of the print ads. Hence, even after the growth in online advertisement,
the newspaper publishers are not making much profit. Still there is hope for
online websites because with the rapid rising in readership, the money spent on
online advertising will increase in near future and then online news websites
will not have to face any financial difficulty.
Another major problem is people are not accustomed to pay for
reading news online. From the very beginning, they read news for free. Hence,
subscription of digital newspaper editions is not very popular among readers.
Famous British daily, the Times website lost two-thirds of its audience after
implementing a paywall. Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Times, announced to
introduce a paywall in 2011. Readers who accessed the Times portal were
required to pay £1 for the first 30 days. This resulted in a drastic drop in
the visitors of the website.
Some Websites related to
Online Journalism
There are many books and websites on Online Journalism. You can
even go to Google and find numerous articles and if you search on Online
Journalism. Here is a list of websites on Online Journalism.
Online Journalism Blog: This
blog covers a wide range of topic on Online Journalism. You can find various
long posts with in-depth analysis. http://onlinejournalismblog.com/
OJR:The Online Journalism
Review: This is another great blog on Online Journalism. Robert Niles,
an experienced journalist and website designer, writes in this blog. This blog
is created by Knight Digital Media Center (KDMC) of University of Southern
California (USC). The address is:
There are some other blogs of KDMC that talks about writing news
online. You can find those blogs here:
Online Journalism: This
website is created by Serena Carpenter, Assistant Professor, Arizona State
University. She teaches and does research on newer media. Link: http://serenacarpenter.com/
The Online News
Association: The Online News Association is a nonprofit membership
organization for digital journalists. Journalists from different backgrounds
are members of this website. They conduct research and arrange seminar
conferences for Online Journalists. Link: http://journalists.org/about/what-we-do/
International Symposium on
ONLINE JOURNALISM: This website has been created by the University of Texas. It
contains all the transcripts and video of International Symposium on ONLINE
JOURNALISM. http://online.journalism.utexas.edu/
Bighow Online Journalism
Handbook: It is a free online resource for Online Journalists. You can
find links to various informative articles on Online Journalism in this page. http://bighow.com/journalism
Nieman Journalism Lab: This
is another resourceful site on Online Journalism. You can find articles on
journalism and Internet here. http://www.niemanlab.org/
Journalism.co.uk:
This web-portal has good articles on journalism and Internet. http://www.journalism.co.uk/
Poynter: This
is the website of Poynter Institute, a
non-profit school for journalism in Florida. This website contains writings of
many famous and experienced journalists covering journalism and Internet.
Huffington Post: A
popular online news website in the U.S. It was created by Arianna Huffington in
2005. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
ProPublica: This
is a non-profit online news organization. It is a very popular website and won
the prestigious Pulitzer award in 2010 and 2011. http://www.propublica.org/
Mindy McAdams:
Mindy McAdams is a journalist, journalism educator and web developer. She has a
blog called Teaching Online Journalism. You can get everything about her from
this link:
Blogging
Blogging is now very popular throughout the world. Though there
is no exact information regarding the number of blogs available on the Internet,
it is not less than 100 million. According WordPress, there are currently more
than 73 million blogs or sites on their platform (blogs hosted on Wordpress.com
and Self-hosted). Many journalists do not want to accept blogging as part of
journalism though and over the last few years, there have been a lot of debates
over the issue in the Western world, especially in the US. However, two
websites (with background of blogging) have been awarded the prestigious Pulitzer
Prize in Journalism in 2012. The difference between
blogging and journalism has been decreasing and it has become much more
difficult to draw a clear line between the two.
A few examples can be cited here in favor of disappearing
boundaries between blogging and journalism.
One of the most popular websites on the Internet is Huffington Post.
Though it started as a blog site, it is now gradually gaining more importance
as a news website. Many renowned journalists are writing for this site and
Huffington Post was awarded Pulitzer Prize this year. Notably, Pulitzer Prize
is the most prestigious award in journalism in the US.
Some changes have been observed in print and online media
lately. Some of the important newspapers like New York Times publish some
content that are only available in their online version and are not found in
print version. That means the importance of Online Journalism has been on a gradual
rise.
Many daily newspapers have opened their blogs. Washington Post,
for example, has a number of blogs. In England, BBC also has some blogs on
different topics. We can see blog sections in many
popular dailies in the Europe and US. Sometimes the blog contents are not
published in the print version. So, the dailies are basically opening up blog
section because of popular demand.
Several blog networks have been created due to the popularity of
blogging. Blog
networks, though, are not entirely news-based there are blogs on different
topics. Some blogs are very popular and one of them
is endgadget.com. It is just one name, but there are ten blogs under it of
which, four publish English language contents and six publish contents in other
languages. Many writers work for Endgadget and the blog provides updates on
technology news or technology related news round the clock.
Blogging could be a ray of hope for the traditional journalists
in the sense that though they are losing jobs in the print newspaper industry,
they could be successful in blogging if they try. So, we are facing a new
reality on Internet and changes in journalism are happening at a quick speed.
For earning money, text blogging is still the most popular
medium. Video blogging is also becoming popular slowly and it is expected that
one day earning money through video blogging will be as easy as earning money
through text.
Citizen
Journalism
“Citizen Journalism” means Journalism practiced by ordinary
citizens. During the age of newspapers, television and radio, the news was
controlled by certain organizations. There were professionals who carefully
wrote or created news content and then published it. Ordinary people had no
contribution in the process. With the advent of Internet, smartphones and other
powerful electronic devices, it is now possible for ordinary people to create
“unique non-fiction content.” This is called Citizen Journalism.
The main benefit of Citizen Journalism is that people can post
photos, videos or “eye witness accounts” of various events at the time of their
happening.
A Citizen Journalist can promote his content via blog, social
networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. The biggest advantage of Citizen Journalists is that
they can cover events and news in their locality which may not get much
coverage in the main stream media.
Through blogs and social media, Citizen
Journalism can also instigate debates on issues that appear in mainstream
media. This helps to keep news alive for a longer period of time.
Mobile
Journalism
Mobile Journalism is a new trend. Also referred as “Cell Phone
Journalism,” it means using a cellphone to record, audio, video, and write text
and publish it. The main advantage of Mobile Journalism is unlike traditional
journalists, Mobile Journalists need not to carry heavy equipment. Using a
smartphone with powerful processors and cameras, a Mobile Journalist can record
video and audio. He can also write and edit text and upload them via Internet.
In developed countries, many news organizations have started experimenting with
Mobile Journalism. Gannett Inc. is one such company. It is the largest
newspaper publisher in the U.S. and owner of the popular daily USA Today. The
company bought 1000 iPhone 4S for its reporters and photographers. Using the
iPhone, they collect videos and pictures, edit them, and then transmit them.
Small or medium news organizations that do not have too much fund can create
news at low cost through Mobile Journalism. Even mainstream news organizations
can practice Mobile Journalism. A TV channel cannot send reporters to cover
every single news or events for they have limited resources. Using smartphones,
the reporters of the channel can easily record video and transmit them.
Online Journalism in
Bangladesh
Online Journalism has not yet flourished
that much in Bangladesh but it is not entirely absent. Among the popular
websites of Bangladesh, there are some news-based websites, online editions of
the popular dailies and community blogs. It indicates that Online Journalism
has great potential in Bangladesh and in near future online news websites will
become very popular. Currently, there are some problems and limitations for
making websites popular in Bangladesh and a collaborative effort is necessary
to overcome them.
List of 25 most browsed websites from
Bangladesh according to Alexa.com ranking: (Data collected on 13 May 2012)
- Google-
google.com
- Facebook
-
facebook.com
- YouTube-youtube.com
- Yahoo!- yahoo.com
- Google-
google.com.bd
- Blogspot.com-blogspot.com
- Prothom
Alo-
prothom-alo.com
- bdnews24.com-
bdnews24.com
- Wikipedia-wikipedia.org
- BanglaNews24.com
-banglanews24.com
- ESPN
Cricinfo-espncricinfo.com
- somewhere
in... blog-
somewhereinblog.net
- WordPress.com-
wordpress.com
- MediaFire-
mediafire.com
- dolancer.com- dolancer.com
- Twitter-
twitter.com
- Techtunes -
techtunes.com.bd
- Blogger.com-
blogger.com
- Dhaka
Stock Exchange (DSE) – Bangladesh- dsebd.org
- LinkedIn-
linkedin.com
- oDesk- odesk.com
- Babylon-
babylon.com
- Banglalion
Communications Ltd.- banglalionwimax.com
- Windows
Live-
live.com
- adf.ly - let your
links take flight- adf.ly
When it comes to news-based websites in
Bangladesh, two websites deserve to be mentioned-bdnews24.com and banglanews24.com.
Both these are online news websites and they are being upgraded day and night
round the clock. As per Alexa Ranking, both these websites are very popular in
our country. They publish news in both Bangla and English.
Almost all the major newspapers have their online version or web
edition. A look at the Alexa Ranking shows that they are read by thousands of
people every day. Some of the online editions of daily newspapers are updated
throughout the day and readers can also post comment. Thus, there is an
interaction and news is becoming interactive in Bangladesh. This indicates the
growing habits of reading news online among Bangladeshi people.
Community blogging has become very popular in this country.
Somewhereinblog (somewhereinblog.net) is the most visited community blog
according to Alexa Ranking. Whenever a major incident like earthquake happens,
one can get more updates in somewhereinblog than any other sites. Thus, when
there is an earthquake in Dhaka or in Bangladesh, we can find 10 to 20 posts
before any TV channel or news website publishes news on it. So, when any breaking
news happens then community blogs are very good place to find news.
The future of Online
Journalism and news website is very bright in Bangladesh. Use of Internet is
increasing every day and in the next few years, almost all the educated people
of our country will have access to Internet. One can understand the popularity
of Internet by looking at the Facebook user statistics for Bangladesh.
Currently, there are more than 2 million Facebook accounts and a good number of
them spend significant amount of time in Facebook. Whenever important news is
published in newspapers or magazines, Facebook users are sharing it with their
friends and discussing about it. Thus, Facebook is becoming an important
discussion place for educated people.
Business
organizations have started to spend some money on online advertisements. If we
look at websites like prothomalo.com, bdnews24.com and banglanews24.com, we can
find a number of advertisements of different companies. However, still the
problem is that business organizations do not want to spend heavily online.
This condition will change in the next 3 to 5 years with increasing usage of Internet.
Internet will become very important for companies to promote products and
services.
Despite possibilities, there are some
major obstacles for Online Journalism at present in Bangladesh. The number of
news websites is still very few. Other than bdnews24.com and banglanews24.com,
there are not many popular news websites and the biggest reason behind this is
that companies do not want to invest heavily online. Currently, there is no established
revenue model. Another major problem is that online advertising programs like Google
AdSense do not support Bangla language. It means one cannot use Google AdSense,
the most popular online advertisement program, if he or she creates a website
in Bangla language.
Moreover, there is not enough skilled
Online Journalists in our country at present. Though there is Journalism, Mass
Communication and Media departments in public and private universities, none of
them offer major in Online Journalism at Bachelor and Masters Level.
Internet speed is another big obstacle
for Bangladesh. Due to the slow Internet, the news websites do not provide much
video content. Even if it is possible to upload video contents, not many people
can watch the videos as they do not have high speed Internet. Comjagat.com (a
sister concern of Monthly Computer Jagat) has been webcasting events live in
their website for the last 3 years.
Bangladesh has policies for providing advertisement and other
support for TV channels and newspapers. Any policy regarding online
advertisement and other support for news websites has not been created yet.
However, Internet all over the world is an independent and free medium. So, most
news website owners would perhaps want to maintain their freedom rather than
getting any support as well as restriction from the government. Anyone can
easily open a website and convert it to into a blog or news website. Currently,
there are many such news websites and community blogs. The government almost
has no control over them.
The universities of Bangladesh,
especially the private universities, can play big role in popularizing Online
Journalism. Currently, there are several private universities that are offering
degrees on Journalism and Media but they are not focusing on Online Journalism.
This condition has to change because the rise of Online Journalism is a
worldwide phenomenon and going against the rising tide would not bring any benefit
for us.
Private universities that have
Journalism departments should start online news websites. For example, a
university can open a news website on sports and allow students to upload news
in that website. In the process, the students would have hands-on experience of
Online Journalism. They would also gain the experience of operating a news
website. This will also give the
university a positive image among people. The private universities spend lot of
money on different club–related activities. So, it is not a problem for them to
provide all the necessary financial support to create a news website and the
university students will work in the website and gain some real-world job experience.
Finally, we have to embrace online
journalism sooner or later. There is huge potential for growth in this field in
our country. It is time that universities, media, corporate houses and
journalists all sit together and do some active brain storming on how to get
the best out of online journalism.
Resources:
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