Frontline Assignment

The biggest impression I have after watching the FRONTLINE video is how Internet is gradually replacing the traditional news platform. According to a study shown in the video by New York University, a majority of Americans under age 25 get their news online or from programs like Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

In addition, Jeff Fager, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, when talking about CBS's partnership with Yahoo! News said,"I mean, you don't see anybody between 20 and 30 getting their news from the evening news; you see them getting it online."

I agree in the future, there may be less and less people relay on traditional daily newspaper or broadcast news network to obtain news. However, I think this does not mean news is going to die; in fact, I believe news is not changing, only the channel used to deliver news changes.

The public still needs journalists to report news for them. But just because Internet is a more convenient channel for them, they give up newspaper and broadcast news network. In fact, I think media also needs to adopot and improve with the technology advance. If people believe Internet is a better channel, why don't the news corporations change themselves for the people?

There is no point to insist only traditional newspapers and broadcast news network are the so-called "formal" news if nobody watches them. Journalists and news still remain important to people, what is changing is only the channel.

Therefore, I agree very much with Google CEO Eric Schmidt when he said Internet news provider in fact rely on traditional news agent very much. "We're in fact critically dependent upon the success of these newspapers. We don't write the content. We're not in the content business. So anything that screws up their economics, that causes them to get rid of reporters, is a really bad thing."