In a convergence of technologies when searching for articles I came across a news video of an interview with Guardian journalist, Roy Greenslade speaking at the Future of Journalism Conference. It was interesting to watch the interview and listen to the audio attached to the file.
Roy Greenslade talks about democratic forms of journalism, freedom of expression and the future of newspapers. He also talks about Journalists as individuals not being as important as journalism itself. Anyone can be a journalist and can contribute so in fact the role of journalists is changing. Exposing things people don’t want exposed were previously left to investigative journalists these days the exposure is not going to be left to the journalists, there are going to be opportunities for individuals to broadcast whatever pieces of information they choose.
While Mr Greenslade talks about newspapers as a large conglomerate ‘dying’, he does highlight that niche publications will continue to exist as the financial structures are in place to support them. He cites the Australian Financial Review as an example of a newspaper which will outlast others. Newspapers are not a sustainable platform for journalism however, the net will be the next platform for journalism.
This leads me onto the importance of online design. It has been proven that “Onscreen reading is far more difficult than reading a printed document” (Parker 2003). Therefore, it is importance to understand how users read web pages in order to make it as easy as possible to read.
The F reading pattern refers to the rough shape in which readers generally scan website pages. It highlights that people only skim read web pages, paying attention to the heading and to the beginnings of the first couple of sentences. What this means to journalists is not only that they have to consider this when writing for the web but that they should also follow the inverted pyramid style of writing putting the most important information at the start of a sentence and the beginning of the page.
More information about the Survival of media platforms for journalism can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2236747.htm
More information about the F Reading pattern can be found via the link below.
<http://rodrigo.typepad.com/english/2006/04/the_f_pattern_w.html>
Parker, RC 2003, ‘Designing documents for web distribution’, Looking good in print, 5th edn, Paraglyph Press, Scottsdale AZ, Chapter 14, pp. 269-293.
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