The future of digital journalism: Twitter is here to stay–for now
In a world where you can access your news from just about any device that connects to the Internet, is there a future of digital journalism or are we already there?
According to Sabrina Siddiqui, a politics reporter at The Huffington Post, we are already partially there with hybrid websites and news aggregators, such as The Huffington Post, VOX Media and BuzzFeed, which all combine reported news stories, aggregation, content and the “fun stuff” that drives traffic to these websites.
Siddiqui, who attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, also says the future of digital journalism lies within the hands of the younger generation who primarily want to access all of their news on one page and within one click.
“The traditional journalism of The New York Times, and the Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, people still want that, they still read it,” said Siddiqui. “When you talk about these newer digital sites, they offer you that traditional journalism, but they’re also catering to a younger audience that does not have the same attention span.”
There has been some criticism in terms of the change in the quality of journalism, from traditional newspaper format to digital, in recent years. Siddiqui says that similar to print and broadcasting, digital journalism is still a business with a business model that is built on traffic and getting people to come to your website.
“You really need to find a unique way to get people to come and visit your website,” said Siddiqui. “If you don’t have all of the things that people want, especially younger people, then I find it hard to believe you’ll be able to continue.”
Siddiqui says that social media websites, such as Twitter, will continue to be a big part of it.
“I think people still want someone to actually sit down and still write something, but I do think that relationship between reporting the stuff very quickly on Twitter or putting out content very quickly and then putting it online is more and more of a trend.”
While working part-time with Bloomberg News’s White House team in Washington, D.C., Siddiqui built her brand using Twitter. Although not technically a reporter at the time, she would report back information internally to her colleagues or tweet out colorful remarks about what President Obama was up to daily, while using 140-characters or less on the online social networking site.
“I continue to tweet a lot for my job. I think that’s still No. 1,” says Siddiqui. “When I’m on Capitol Hill, which is my primary beat, I tweet a lot of what’s happening sometimes before I even write the story.”
Siddiqui says many reporters, producers and other news professionals use Twitter to network and to get their names (along with their news organization's names) noticed by each other and the public in order to gain notoriety.
"A great deal of the job nowadays has to do with exposure and how many people are reading and accessing your work,” said Siddiqui. “There’s so much more competition because the Internet has offered everyone unlimited space.”
Gaining a large following and developing a large readership online is motivating to Siddiqui.
“When people ask what’s my metric for success, I don’t try to pay too much attention to how many clicks a story of mine got, but I already know that I work for the Huffington Post and my work is being shared and is being seen so when I see it on social media or share it widely I know that at least I’m reaching a lot of people.”
