THE INTERNET AND ITS CHALLENGES TO NIGERIAN JOURNALISTS
BY
LAWAL SA’IDU,
LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT IN KATSINA
BEING A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE 2010 KATSINA CORRESPONDENTS’ CHAPEL WEEK.
DATE: 9TH JUNE, 2010
VENUE:
CONFERENCE ROOM, LIYAFA PALACE HOTEL, KATSINA
1.1 INTRODUCTION
The digitalization of the news production, transmission and circulation process has posed a major challenge to the journalism profession. The older media are also facing serious risk with the emergence of the internet. The internet provided a multiple platform for story telling. You can via the internet read scripts, listen to audio and watch visuals. This however makes some observers to conclude that the end has come for newspaper, radio and television. It also indicated that journalists with multiple skills stand the chance of coping with the new realities.
1.2 EVOLUTION OF THE COMPUTER
The computer can be described as the backbone of internet. The earliest version of computer were basically adding machines designed to take the drudgery out of repetitive arithmetical calculations (Dominick, 2009). In the 17th century, a French Mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal created the arithmatique, a machine the size of a shoebox filled with interconnected 10-toothed wheels that could add numbers up to one million. A few decades later, the German Mathematician Gootfred Wilhelm Von Leibniz explored the subject of binary arithmetic, a system with just two possible values, 0 and 1. The binary system is the one used by modern computers (Dominick, 2009).
It was in 1940 that a Harvard University mathematician, Howard Aiken, made the next breakthrough when he created a digital computer. A few years later, researchers at the University of Pennysylvania constructed the first all-electronic computer (Dominick, 2009). According to Dominick, 2009, it was in 1990 that the world saw an explosion in computer communication that continues today.
1.3 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET
(A) WHAT IS INTERNET
The internet is a world-wide collection of thousands of interlinked computers. The backbone of the internet is made up of high capacity computer networks that then link to regional and local networks. Individuals or organizations can link to the local network directly or through a local Internet Service Provider, ISP (Adamu, 2009).
(B) HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF INTERNET
In the early 1970s, when the cold war was still raging, the US department of Defense was concerned about the vulnerability of its computers network to nuclear attack. The Pentagon did not want to lose all its computing and communication ability to one well-placed atomic bomb. This fear however push the defense computer experts to decentralized the whole system by creating an interconnected web of computer networks. The net was designed so that every computer could talk to every other computer. Information was packaged in a packet called an internet protocol packet, which contained the destination address of the target computer. With this the computer figured out how to send the packet (Dominick, 2009).
According to Dominick, 2009, the system that the Pentagon eventually developed was called ARPANET. The users of this early network were primarily scientists and computer experts and most observers thought that it would continue to be of interest only to high-tech types. In the 1980s, the national science foundation, whose own network was already connected to the net, created the super computing centres in the US Universities.
It was in 1990 that the World Wide Web (WWW) was developed. Engineers working at a physics laboratory in Switzerland created an interconnected set of computers on the net that all used the same communication programme (Dominick, 2009). This programme took advantage of hypertext, a navigational tool that linked one electronic document, either text or graphics, with another thus creating a virtual web pages (Adamu, 2009).
The web started off as an electronic information resource for scientist but was quickly discovered and utilized by the entire internet community. With this development any organization or individual could create a page on the web as long as the person or organization used the communication rules developed in Switzerland (Dominick, 2009). It was after this that conventional media companies, businesses, organizations and individuals got involved with the web.
(C) THE STRUCTURE AND FEATURES OF THE INTERNET
Internet has certain structures and features that make it a unique medium. Internet is a global network of computer networks. In more technical terms, this means that a group of two or more networks is electronically connected and able to communicate with one another. Together they act as a single network. For this work, however, the computers have to speak a common language. The common language, called a protocol by computer programmers, that was developed for the internet is called the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). It is actually a set of protocols that govern how data travel from one machine to another over networks. IP is sort of like the address on an envelop. It tells a computer where to send a particular message, Dominick, 2009.
An individual can gain access to the internet in one of two ways: (i) Through an Internet Service Provider (ISP), a company that connects to subscriber to the net and usually charges a fee and secondly, through an Online Service Provider (OSP) such as America online or MSN, Dominick, 2009.
If one is connected to the internet, an individual can make use of a variety of tools for information, entertainment, and communication. The three of the more proper applications are (1) e-mail (2) newsgroups and (3) world wide web.
(a) E-Mail: Million of people are connected to the internet and you can send mail to one of them or many of them. E-mail works on client/server arrangements. To send and read e-mail, user must access another computer, where their mailbox resides. E-mail messages are not limited to text, attachments, such as graphics, sound or spreadsheets can also be sent. E-mail is usually fast, cheap and reliable. It is the most widely used internet resources. In 2006, more than 10 trillion e-mail messages moved through the net, Dominick, 2009.
(b) Newsgroups: These are collections of electronic bulletin boards, arranged according to topic; where people can read and post messages. Some newsgroups are devoted to current events, but the news in newsgroups refers to topical discussion groups, not news in the traditional sense. The resources and information in the articles that make-up the news are written by people interested in the topic. Others can read the articles and comment on them. The newsgroup exists on a special network called Usenet, a component of the internet. There are more than 40,000 different newsgroups, with topics ranging from the highly intellectual to the downright weird, Dominick, 2009.
(c) The World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is a network of information sources incorporating hypertext that allows the user link one piece of information to another. It is imperative to understand that the web is part of the internet, the two terms are not synonymous. The Web is non-linear which means the user does not have to follow a hierarchical path from one piece of information to another. The user can jump from the middle of one document into the middle of another. In addition, the Web incorporates text, graphics, sound and motion. A Web site is a complete set of hypertext pages linked to each other that contains information about a common topic. A Web page is a hypertext page that is contained within a web site. A home-page of a Web site is the entry or doorway to the site that might contain links to other pages or to various sections of the site. The tremendous variety of sites and the motives behind them make it difficult to describe Web sites in general terms. There are sites maintained by big media companies which they use to promote their traditional media products and to build an audience for the online content as well; Dominick, 2009.
1.4 THE USE OF INTERNET IN THE MEDIA
The internet plays a vital role in Newspaper, Radio and Television production. The roles include among other news gathering, writing, editing, designed, transmission, distribution and production.
In the area of news gathering and writing reporters are able to contact news sources in far away places and get relevant information from them without having to travel. A journalists can also refer to the internet to get relevant information and would serve as a background to his write-ups.
Editing of copies, sound and visuals is also done on computer. News scripts, sound and visuals are transferred from the newsroom to the editor’s computer. It is from these computers that corrections were made, Anaeto, Solo-Anaeto, and Tejumaiye, 2009. With this technology all production process in the old medium is now more flexible, easier and saves a lot of time.
Internet also plays a major role in distribution and circulation of materials programmes produced by Newspapers, Radio and Television. The internet in this direction is used to offer on-line subscription for publication, search for effective outlets for sales and display on-line adverts.
1.5 INTERNET AND FUTURE OF THE OLD MEDIA
The emergence of internet as a new medium has put to risk the survival of the older medium. The internet provided a platform where stories can be told from multiple platforms. This however triggered the debate over the possibility of the survival of older medium such as the Television, Newspapers and Radio.
Wilzig and Avigdor, 2004, provided an insight into the inter-media struggle for survival in the internet age. Wilzig and Avigdor, 2004 present a natural life cycle model of new media development. To cut it short, according to Wilzig and Avigdor, 2004, the six stages include: birth (technical invention), penetration, growth, maturity, self defence and adaptations and convergence.
Similarly, Wilzig and Avigdor, 2004 present a human metaphor of media development. This provided that each media goes through the stages of elitist – popular – senior citizenship.
Going by this analysis we can comfortably conclude that the older medium will survive and will adapt to the new challenges.
1.6 THE CHALLENGES OF CONVERGENCE:
One of the most prominent implication of internet is the convergence. According to Quinn, 2008, convergence varies form country to country, company to company and culture to culture. Therefore convergence can be viewed from broader perspective and may be seen as the process of telling news stories through multiple media platforms in order to communicate the story through the most appropriate medium, through cooperation and collaboration to serve the public interest better.
To Quinn, 2008, the issue of convergence is about doing better journalism in the digital news media environment. The underlying premise is that a radical change mindset and attitude among managers and journalist is necessary for a fuller realization of the potential of convergence.
According to Quinn, 2008, there is the urgent need for media practitioners to move towards a convergence model because journalists who have been trained to have a multi-media mindset are equipped with better tools to tell more interesting stories. The acquisition of newspapers by big radio, television, on-line organization, a newspaper reporter is expected to file his stories for all these multi-media platforms. In Nigeria most of the media outfits are operating an off-line and on-line version.
1.7 THE NEW FRONTIER
To us Nigerian journalists the internet has provided a new frontier of opportunities. As journalists and front runners in the crusade for good governance, the journalists can effectively use internet to reach a wider audience.
The internet provides an opportunity for journalists and mass communication students to use numerous avenues provided to get themselves fully engaged in the task of carrying their ideas across. Blogs can be created free of charge by journalists and mass communication students to serve as a platform for them to reach out to the world.
With the internet that makes almost every individual a journalist, trained journalists cannot afford to hide information. Most of the breaking stories of wider global attention were broken by non-journalists through the internet. The extent of Tsunami crisis and how it happened were broken by non-journalists. The way Saddam Husseini of Iraq was hanged was recorded and transmitted via internet by non-journalists. The way the leader of the Boko Haram sect was executed was captured on the camera and posted on the internet via U-Tube.
A major challenge to Nigerian journalists is the existence of some on-line websites. Most of these web-sites provided some vital information about events in Nigeria which usually took Nigerian media weeks to verify and report.
However, heart warming is that most of Nigerian papers, especially, Daily Trust and Leadership provided a kind of news alert to inform their on-line readers of a story that just break.
1.8 THE WAY FORWARD
I strongly feel that journalists with adequate computer and internet knowledge stand a better chance of competing under the new media challenge. It is imperative for media practitioners to provide computer training for their workers. Our local Radio, Television and Newspaper outfits must embrace the internet to get across to a wider audience who might appreciate their environment.
CONCLUSION
Here I will only stress my earlier appeal to Nigerian journalists that we must equip our skills to meet up with the challenges of the new technological realities. We must also sharpen our skills of going after stories as they break, living our audience at the mercies of on-line websites is both dangerous and counter productive.
