With the arrival of the internet, the traditional media had to face a strong competitor: The “Digital Media”. People used to buy their newspapers with their coffee and head to their work. However, with the changing world, everything started to become easier for people. For example, nowadays, you can still buy a traditional newspaper but it truly seems much easier to look up the news from your technological devices. People can follow a newspaper on Twitter and they don’t have to get a newspaper because the digital media is free, easy to reach, up to date, and easy to get information from the newspapers. You can even read the columnists’ writings on the newspaper’s websites. So, what happens? The traditional media loses popularity day by day. In the end, they become the laggards of a harsh competition.
According to a research which was done by the journalist Dr. Hamza Çakır, “newspapers were the most affected media source after the technological developments on the Internet.” Newspapers were affected negatively and it is 48, 25% of internet affected media. Most people prefer reading the news from the Internet because it is easy, up to date and full of videos and photographs. Internet newspaper readers also have a chance to write their comments about the news. The columnists’ articles can be shared with network such as Twitter or Facebook.
Digital age has helped the media consumers offering them easy and immediate availability while the media moguls have become more concerned about earning the profit that they should make because they are losing funds. Internet media sometimes uses videos, comments and photographs without researching their source. Therefore, one can say that media ethics is easily put at risk. Digital media should utilize a much stricter format for their editorials, with stringent rules on verifying information provided on the site. They should filter the digital sources and then publish them for the readers. For example, some celebrity videos are published and shared with the network users. We are not sure if the source has asked for permission from these people or not. There is no reference to the person who has published this news item, making it public with network tools, which is completely unethical according to the ethics of journalism. The unfair result is for the benefit of the internet newspapers. However, in traditional news we do not have these elements. The source is always stated and the printed newspaper stays with the reader.
Only a further regulations and guidelines for internet and digital media can level the playing field with traditional newspapers.