How have blogs and the internet changed the way news is reported?

In the early days of reporting the news was compacted into a newspaper and distributed on a weekly basis, so that the population had to wait a week to gain knowledge about what was going on in their community. As printing presses became more efficient the papers began to be issued on a daily basis, bringing the citizens the news every morning on their doorstep. After the development of radio, the print and radio industries fought over customers, radio winning over the customers who were more concerned with learning about the news as soon as possible and print retaining the people who wanted a hard copy along with pictures as their news format. The next major development in the media world was the television, which had the speed of the radio coupled with the pictures of the print. In today's world, however, there is a new medium which is changing the way news is reported, the internet.

The internet allows much more convenient access to the news as soon as it happens, as some websites will even provide live video feeds of what is happening in the story, like with the BP oil spill. Another advantage of the internet is that instead of picking up a paper and looking through it or turning on the news and waiting for the story you want to hear, you can easily search for the topic you want to know about. With the increased interest in the internet, the way news is reported is changing from a process which took time and involved reporters appearing on television or radio, into a process where people can find out what's going on almost instantaneously and reporters never have to be seen or heard.