ONLINE JOURNALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA

Online journalism in South Africa

Advantages and Disadvantages of online journalism

Online journalism is defined as the reporting of facts when produced and distributed via the internet. Online journalism makes everything simple for journalists because they don’t have to go out to the field and get stories but rather access them on the internet which I turn to think saves money and time. For example, when there is an international story happening, it can be easily accessible from the internet. Most international stories break firstly in the internet and journalists get them there rather than having to travel.

Online journalism encourages communication between journalists and the news receivers because they are able to post the comments and give out feedback. It reaches a majority of people because some don’t actually have time to read newspapers or listen to the radio or even watch television, it is fast and informative. About one hundred million people can access the internet knowing that online information is revealed as it breaks.

The disadvantage around online is that the information is not 100% correct because here journalists publish fast facts and don’t verify or accurately report their news. Another thing is that not everyone can access the internet and read the news because of financial purposes and other reasons while some find it boring. In other undeveloped countries, online news are not a first choice because they don’t have access so they prefer to rather listen to radio’s for news or watch the television.



Online news in South Africa (three)

The three news online sites I have visited are not different from one another in a sense that they have almost the same layout home page and their style of writing is also not that different from each other. News24 is one of the news sites I visited and I realized that they start off with breaking news then have politics news or follow up on politics news and the other categories such as sport, entertainment e.c.t follows.

Its blog is always updated on time and has all the current news and the feedback from people is essentially productive. I also visited the IOL and Mail&Gardian blogs and they also look good and their quite informative and reveal news as they break. But again I have realized that what may seem as important news for the other sites may not necessarily be important to the other.

News24 covers almost every sector of news which I think is fair for every person rather than IOL online which covers mostly on the business side. The IOL is a good online site because it caters for every sector, you find your motoring, sports and politics amongst all and their home page is good and has its option right at the top. The last one is the Mail&Gardian which is also an interesting one because it also covers different types of news. The three sites I have visited are great because they have many common things and their colors are designed in a conserved way.