Chapter One Review and Interpretation; Isaac & Kate.

Many of today’s conglomerate companies involved in news media take on vertical integration. This means that growing news media companies these days, such as Quebecor in Canada, own many different media outlets, ranging from print, television, radio and also

use online news pages. All of these different mediums can then cross over and share stories, making for a more unified ‘voice’. This saves the companies money since they can pay one writer to comprise a story on an issue which they then spread over their varying papers, television programs, or spill it out onto the internet for viewing. The largest problem with this system, is that this unified ‘voice’ means that there are fewer view points and less journalists.



In this day and age, where yesterday’s newest piece of technology is already replaced by today’s new development, (for example, the relatively new 3G technology already being bested by the new development of 4G technology) convergence of various media is an important concept. Print media was once the meat and potatoes of a journalist’s employment diet, and now with the emergence of the internet in the past ten years, along with the already present television and radio mediums, a journalist must be able to cross over from medium to medium, and back again to print, to be successful in today’s journalism field. Along with journalists needing to be tech-savvy and on the up and up with new technological advances, copy editors must also be privy to all these changing technologies. Editors need to be aware of their audience; changing technologies and they must also learn to utilize all the newly emerging technologies and techniques to stay on top of the media world. Creative Editing For Canadian Journalists states that “those who will thrive in the future will be those who can ‘cross over’ from print to television and back”, which is an important aspect of how both editors and journalists are directly involved with convergence.

People’s need for news and information, and the way they are sharing it evolves on a constant basis and those who produce news need to be up on the latest trends understanding the wants and needs of their audience leading to keeping their business afloat and the communities they serve in the know. Convergence and conglomeration creating media empires has been a growing trend in North America due to the need for efficiency and to find a cost effective way to keep up production. Feeding people pertinent, relevant, and impactful news still needs to be the main focus and concern of the news media, and critical thinking on the part of the audience must be something to which even more attention than ever must be paid in today’s major media world.