Is Free Content Ruining Journalism?

The internet is a haven for anyone and his dog to write down their inner most thoughts. Blogs have become a dime a dozen, with every teenage girl writing about her One Direction obsession and most middle-aged house-wives filling their afternoon hours blogging about cake making. Suddenly everyone has become a journalist and thus journalism has taken the same path as the word, ‘literally’, it has become meaningless.

However, the teenage ‘Directioner’ isn’t planning on making a living from her ramblings, her blog is the 21^st century equivalent of the diary that we hid under our pillow, if you don’t Google One Direction, which I personally don’t plan to do, then you’ll be blissfully unaware of her waffling. The difference is that people like Arianna Huffington do make their living from free content. Unfortunately, her rising bank balance is fairly unequal to those who write for her. The Huffington Post, essentially a glorified blog in itself, is the torch-bearer at our much-loved journalism’s funeral. The 3000 contributors to the site are unpaid, unreliable and unmonitored. Fact-checking seems to have become irrelevant and proof-reading has become a thing of the past. I’m not a stranger to Huff Post myself, but the US site reaches 85million unique users per month and it is quickly becoming one of the most visited websites on the internet. 

To step away from nattering on about the depreciation of journalistic integrity, (I can spend a while criticising The Daily Mail for their typos and false information), free content is a disaster for the published press as well. It is over-written that newspapers are on the decline with The Guardian estimating that they’re in their last decade and cut backs across magazines. Newspapers can no longer afford to support their writers, why is it that we no longer feel journalists (or writers at least) deserve to make a living from their skill? And what does it mean for print journalism?  

The fundamental destruction of journalism is not the fact that we now read from a lit-up electronic device rather than paper, but that the young generation who write for the lit-up devices use it as an excuse to boycott established and important journalistic practice. It is all too easy to publish a made-up statistic or a false statement therefore filling the minds of others with gibberish and grot. By all means create your corner of the internet to write about that banana and apple muffin you made last week, but do it for you. For the public, bring back the editors and slow the process down, or our children won’t know the difference between their, ‘there’ and their, ‘they’re’.   

Is Technology Ruining the English Language?

Image: cozylittlebookjournal

With the emergence of mobile phones and, in particular, the rise in obsessive use of them by young people, came the concern by some that mobile phones and text language have caused a demise of the English language. It is fair to say that ‘text speak’ has crept into spoken English and perhaps affected a few teenagers, but perhaps it is more the change in rapidity of our communication that could be the cause of the problem.

Having to admit that I occasionally read the Daily Mail to make my next point is a shame, but The Mail Online is a classic case of quantity over quality. The speed in which they produce their articles, in order to keep up with social media, leads to an offensive amount of typing errors and language mistakes. I am sure that the middle-aged journalist is perfectly capable of grammatically correct English, but perhaps the young and impressionable reader may not be.

Evolution of language is important, the words we use have to fit with the way we live our lives. The rapidity of communication, and the increase in unnecessary communication, render eloquent phrasing unnecessary. There’s no need for a grammatically correct way of messaging, ‘train delayed –will be 10 mins late’ because its purpose is the information it provides, not the way in which it is provided. It is a fascinating novelty of our generation that we even feel the necessity of sending such a message, and we regularly do, presumably our grandparents would have just waited patiently for our parents at the station, working out for themselves that the train was delayed.  

It can be said that the word, ‘ruining’ may be a little presumptuous, ‘evolving’ may be more appropriate. The invention of the internet has lead to a whole new terminology such as, ‘blog’, ‘viral or, ‘social media’ which are all recently acquired vocabulary. Why do we feel differently about ‘lol’ and ‘l8r’? It is said that Shakespeare’s audiences were new to one in ten of his words, if he was allowed to creatively alter the English language, aren’t the teenagers of today?

Yet the fact remains that the internet has provided the small guy with a voice. If a hashtag is created on Twitter, there’s nothing the nostalgic English speakers can do about it. Although, the Italians feel much stronger on the topic, they can arrest shop owners with misspelt signs for ‘public abuse of the language’. We, on the other hand, have a good old moan. Well, I do anyway. 

How Facebook Has Ruined the House Party

When parents think of 'house party' and Facebook in the same sentence, they automatically picture this: 

Or this:

and they remember those Daily Mail articles where Timmy advertised his party on Facebook and the next thing they knew, they had £300,000 of damage and an arrested son. Well, I want to argue that although the Daily Mail may think Facebook gets a party started, perhaps it’s causing a whole new level of apathy as well. 

With the invention of Facebook Events, it seems that the necessity for a reliable RSVP has diminished. We no longer require a calendar or even a memory; we just pop onto Facebook and see if we fancy the event happening that evening, causing us to plan our social lives far more spontaneously. Clicking ‘yes’ on an event has become more a recognition of it happening rather than an affirmation of attendance. Gone are the personalised text messages or even the more civilised phone call, in fact gone is any direct communication at all. Create event, invite friends, enter.   

Now this is all fine and dandy if you’re relaxed about the outcome of your party, but it seems to me that you have to invite four times as many people as you actually want to turn up. Now that sounds rather different to Timmy and his cheese and crackers evening. Whereas in the past you would invite 10 on Facebook and 100 would show up, arguably now it needs to be the other way around. Although that may be comforting for parents, I would argue that Facebook is ruining the student necessity that is the 'house party'.