The Future of News.

Okay so here's the deal.  Social Media is coming at us fast and hard.  It seems that everything is now available online.  Let's be honest, it's just a faster option for our "I want something now" society.  If people don't want to go to the out to go shopping when they can just browse, compare prices and purchase clothes, books, cars and pets from the comfort of their own home, why on earth would they want to go out to pick up a newspaper when they can just search for what they want online?
Whenever people ask me what I'm majoring in and I say "Print Journalism" I usually get a look and the response, "But isn't that a dying profession?"  Something people don't seem to understand is that journalism isn't dying, print is.  If it weren't for journalists, bloggers, twitter-ers or facebook-ers wouldn't have anything to write about.  Think about it.  Journalists try to offer a neutral version of a certain event and it's the civil journalists that flavor their versions with their opinion.  Without journalists, we would only have stories tainted with the opinions of others instead of the plain facts.
I do think that social media can be a positive thing for journalism.  It gets the news spread in a faster, more efficient way and also has the ability to let people link to other sources.  Social networking sites are now acting as "web services" and not just sites allowing readers to be active and comment on articles and voice their opinions through discussions boards and comment boxes.  Richard Gordon talks about News Mixer in an article he wrote for the Neiman Reports and how this creation by graduate students at the Medill School of Journalim allows readers to comment on the stories.
Social media has changed the role of the reporter because they now have to be quick and efficient writers, getting the news out fast before someone else does.  I believe that there will always be a need for journalists even if they have to end up writing for an online paper instead of an actual newspaper.