Journalists must be able to keep up with the Social Media surge!
Gone are the days of people having to wait for newspapers the next morning to hear the news. Social Media has changed the ability to get news more than ever before. At just the click of a button or a simple refresh on a social media site, news now appears anytime a reader wants it. Journalists are on constant demand now more than before ever to produce the newest and latest news.
The news of Kobe Bryant’s death by TMZ is one of the best examples of how fast journalists are working. These journalists found out about Kobe’s death before his family even found out that him and his daughter, along with others, died in a helicopter crash. TMZ was the first to publish the story and soon after a numerous amount of journalists started publishing it as well. This type of quickly created news story shocked the nation and could not have waited until the next morning to be published.
Through this past year, the world was on their toes as news of the COVID-19 pandemic made its way spreading across the world from nation to nation. Many people have never lived in or through a world pandemic before and so everyone was waiting for any new information they could get regarding the virus. Journalists had to kick in to high gear as the world stayed home in quarantine and awaited the latest updates.
Even journalists who work as a part of staff must release information as soon as possible before others find out about it. Prince Phillip’s death is an example of their own journalists working to report the news to the world before the rest of the world reports it for them.
As the news of George Floyd’s death hit the nation, journalists were working overtime to cover the latest news and protests. This death sparked an outrage in the nation and helped to start the revolution of #BlackLivesMatter that was being covered by journalists across the United States.
Journalists trying to gather a story in a major time crunch but trying to keep their professional faces on.
Through the presidential election, journalists had a hard time getting any insider information from both sides because of limited capacity to rallies and press conferences. These journalists had to work hard to get information to the public on the latest voting news about who was winning the election.
As you can see, these journalists are working in high demand, and many times, even overtime. The world is so used to being produced information as soon as it happens and so the demand for information is at an all time high. Journalists have to work hard to produce the story first, before the rest of social media, and other journalists, beats them to it.