City University London’s head of journalism, Professor George Brock, is to ask whether ‘news’ is over, in a lecture on March 17:
We think we know what the word means, but news is changing before our eyes. With a quarter of the planet’s population connected to the broadband internet and three quarters with a mobile phone, the media, journalism and ‘news’ are being turned upside down. What comes next and what happens to journalism?
Brock is a former international editor of the Times and former president of the World Editors’ Forum. He is also due to give the introductory speech at Journalism.co.uk’s news:rewired event on Thursday 14 January 2010.
Is news over? Are you serious? ‘News’ now is about as ‘new’ as it gets. Look at Twitter – real time breaking events which qualified journalists can source and get first-hand accounts from.
I have been looking at newspaper cuttings from the Spanish Civil War for a book I’m writing and it’s days out of date and probably inaccurate – yet people revere those days of news gathering and reporting.
No, news is not dead. It’s very much alive.
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