Game Changing Reporters of the 21st Century

Americans still watch news, but the national faces of news are fading, and instead it’s information coming from the public, going to the public. Tweets, Instagram, and Facebook are being reported as stories, and that means that ‘our man on the scene’ is you, your mom, and/or Anderson Cooper.

 

You

Twitter, Facebook, and the widespread use of cell phones, meaning that you are our first source for news. Media outlets use pictures gathered from social media to report to the public faster. They can report from potentially unsafe conditions without having to send reporters into riots or natural disasters. This also means the man on the scene could be a pre-autotuned hide yo’ kids, hide yo’ wife, or it could be a Russian dashcam. There are 1.4 mobile devices for every human on this planet, meaning coverage and ability to prove what happened and get it to someone else is more available than ever. The best reporter of the 21st century is you.

 

Your Mom

Your mom is just as likely to look at digital news as you are. Forty nine percent of people in their 40s receive news in a digital format, more than people 18-29 at forty eight percent. And she is just as likely to be using Twitter as 55% of users are over 35.  Your mom might be more active on social networking sites than you are! She is also more likely to be watching the news, even though 72% of Americans still watch the news, half of broadcast TV viewers are 54 or older. This means that she is going to be watching news that connects to the social media sites. She is the one reporting on the scene, to the news outlets on social media.

 

Anderson Cooper

Anderson Cooper had the marked luxury and destruction of the 20th century behind him in a particular dada sort of way that matched the rest of the 20th century, setting him to be an icon of American media in the 21st century. He was the son of a the Vanderbilt heiress and an American screenwriter, covering the macabre body piling wars of the 1990s, from Rwandan genocide to the guerilla warfare tearing the muddy skies of Bosnia.

After that time, he decided to make a more carefree career choice, moving to CNN news positions, and finally hosting his own news program. He used to do teen-focused news now he speaks to six million Twitter followers, and a half million daily viewers. He has hosted the New Year’s Eve show on CNN for the past eight years, with no sign of stopping, hitting the most number of views for the 2nd year in a row.  This puts him on par with Dick Clark as a classic. Entertaining but seen as a source of news, he is the last real news man.

There were great journalists of the 20th century, but compared to the sea of information and the ways we can spread it in the 21st, there is no comparison. The great journalists of the 21st century are you, your mother, and Anderson Cooper.