How Social Media Is Supporting a Fundamental Shift in Journalism - Is There A Shift In Journalism Occurring? It is very possible that the near future many witness the extinction of print media corporations, in favor of digital media corporations was only the beginning of a much larger shift. Though many people do still read news online that has been produced by traditional outlets, many users are now expressing that they feel the traditional outlets are 'too slow' or that their reporting has 'too much of an agenda'. While this attitude towards traditional media has been around for a long time, the prevalence of mobile devices that can record pictures, video and have constant internet connections, combined with the growing popularity of social networking sites has actually made it possible for people to produce and share news themselves. Aided by social media networking sites and smaller social media outlets, users are able to document the news as it happens in real time and reach a huge number of people. Furthermore, people reading the news posts of others are able to engage with the original poster by contributing their views on the topic while sharing it with others. Suddenly, online papers are no longer the favored place to get the news and people are instead (intentionally or unintentionally) turning to 'citizen journalists' for their news. Social media outlets, both large and small, are thrilled about this and typically encourage the behavior by developing plugins and tools, like video sharing, that make it possible to turn anyone with a smartphone into the foremost authority on an unraveling situation. Many social media operations have even begun providing advice on how to create and share a video the entire world will see. Unfortunately, this new style of journalism is not foolproof, nor has it proven to be extremely accurate, but that does not mean that it should not continue to be encouraged.

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