News, news, news.

New media offers us so many more options to news. News has transformed from a push into a pull media, where the individual has more control. Years back news was only fed to us at certain times of the day. Imagine only having access to current events in the daily news bulletins or the arrival of your Herald in the morning. We are spoilt with the immediacy and convenience of news in todays society.

New media now allows us to access news whenever we want to, via our phones or laptops. There are online news papers as equivalents, eg. New Zealand Herald (www.nzherald.co.nz/). - these even eliminate us even having to purchase a paper. Countless websites provide news reports, even your favourite social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook can provide a news element. These sites can go even further by providing an aspect of 'citizen journalism' one which provides the citizen to take part in the news reporting. This participatory journalism can be seen in sites such as Indymedia (http://www.indymedia.org.nz/) I think this is a great idea. Being able to put your opinion forward is a total highlight of this kind of news.

Sometimes it is hard to beat the traditional forms of news. The familiarity is reassuring. It is sometimes exhausting searching for relevant or unbiased news articles in the world wide web. Often you are faced with information overload. A case of having to much info on offer. Offline news gives it to you short and sweet, but new media offers so much more variety.

They both have their advantages. In the online world you can personalise and pick and choose what you think is newsworthy. I like having the options. I love knowing technology is there for me if I wish to have news that way.