Extinction of journalism

Journalism used to be regarded as the ultimate way of informing and investigating the truth. People used to honor journalists and their trials for bringing honesty to the public and raising their awareness in order to form the righteous, well-informed and literate public opinion, capable of fighting corruption on the spot and building a better nation and scene for our beloved young generations. Nowadays, the standards of ethical and professional journalism is hardly realized maybe that's because the feasibility and the availability of the new media especially the social media and blogs. Those media have allowed anyone to create, edit and promote content with no verification or guarantee of honesty or truthfulness.

From that perspective, an international initiative has started a tour to acknowledge journalism students with the current situation and make sure they are on the right track of ethics and professionalism to keep the essence of honest journalism. Professor. Michael Folly has visited Misr university for science and technology on Wednesday, the 15th of March, and had an exciting talk with the students of "New media" course of the Mass media and communication technology major. He started his lecture with the introduction of the professional and ethical standards of journalism and how authentic and honorable is this profession. He then moved to mention how this profession is being threatened by the open nature of the social and online media, whether from the free nature of the information dealt on them and the aggregates or from the editable nature and feasibility of creating and promoting information with no sense of responsibility about the honesty or the truthfulness of this piece of information. "The traditional media are finding it harder to get paid for something that costs a lot of money. Washington post or Huffington post or other aggregates can push newspapers to be out of business as honest journalism and investigation cost millions and millions of dollar. So I guess we're facing a real issue here with the survival of the profession", Professor Michael noted.

The seminar really went very well especially when the professor opened the window for questions, and he discussed with the students how the honesty of sponsored journalism is already questioned, the solutions for investigative and professional journalism to survive and what they can do to support journalism and make sure they have their own shot with the profession they're being educated and trained to work at.

Moamen Magdy Bakry

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