Bad Days for Newsrooms.....Maybe??

Hedge's once again comes out fighting in his article as he tries to explain how democracy is failing and that news is being turned into entertainment by corporations. He starts out by saying how the journalism industry is failing, and he states the facts that the stocks of many newspapers are falling. He does have links this time, but Hedges does not put the links to these facts unfortunately. What is the point? I don't know either. Also the economic recession was during the time frame that he wrote, so it was not only the newspapers that were having trouble. They may have been one of the first ones to get hit, but many stocks dropped as everyone well knows. Hedges believes that no one cares about the real facts anymore and says that the internet along with massive corporations are slowly destroying traditional media such as newspapers. Once again Hedges sounds like someone who is a little too afraid of change.

Now on to the second piece. Clive Thompson has a radically different opinion compared to Hedges. Thompson somehow believes that the internet is actually making us more literate. Hedges might blow a gasket if he saw this one. He uses scientific studies from Stanford university to go against the numerous amount of people who think that our new internet habits are destroying are reading and writing habits. The study shows that in the world today people are writing extensively outside of school and job related writing. We are definitely a different generation and will have some differences, but Thompson and Lunsford(the person who conducted Stanford's study) believe that it will benefit us in the long run. Thompson's article is much less assertive than Hedge's and makes you feel like if you do not agree with his view you still might live. People are afraid of the unknown. While the writing and reading habits of our new generations are changing, it does not necessarily have to be for the worse. We are sailing uncharted waters and may come up with new discoveries comparable to the discovering of the Americas. Just think of all the people that were criticized for challenging current ideas, and then look at where we are today because of them. This new age may be the same way.