Journalism

What Is Journalism?

Journalism is the practice of gathering, verifying, and distributing information about current events and matters of public interest to an audience through a structured editorial process. It draws a distinction from ordinary information sharing by its commitment to verification, attribution, editorial oversight, and accountability to professional standards. Journalism encompasses print, broadcast, and digital forms, each shaped by the communication technology through which content reaches its audience. As IEEE's scope in this area reflects, the field intersects substantially with telecommunications, signal processing, and digital media systems.

The practice emerged in recognizable form with the penny press of the 1830s in the United States, was reshaped by the telegraph in the latter half of the 19th century, and underwent further transformations with radio, television, and the internet. Each technological shift altered both the economics of news production and the relationship between journalists and their audiences.

Print journalism, delivered through newspapers and periodicals, established the conventions of bylines, editorial hierarchies, and the separation of news from opinion that persist across modern journalism forms. The transition to digital distribution, which accelerated through the 1990s as internet access became widespread, preserved many of these conventions while eliminating the physical production and distribution constraints that had shaped print economics for over a century. Digital journalism introduced the ability to publish continuously rather than in discrete editions, to incorporate multimedia elements including audio and video alongside text, and to gather granular data about reader behavior through analytics. Research on the history of these transitions, including the role of technology in the evolution of news, is documented by institutions such as the Computer History Museum, which tracks how each major communication technology has restructured the news ecosystem.

Digital outlets now operate across websites, mobile applications, podcasts, and streaming platforms, creating a fragmented media environment where audience measurement and content discovery depend heavily on algorithmic distribution platforms.

Broadcast Journalism

Broadcast journalism delivers news through radio and television, using audio and video transmission to reach audiences who may not have access to or preference for print. Radio broadcast journalism entered its formative period in the 1930s, when global events including the rise of political tensions in Europe made real-time audio reporting valuable in ways that print could not match. The BBC, founded in 1922, played a central role in establishing standards for broadcast editorial practice. Television journalism added visual storytelling to the news form, and the Maryville University overview of digital journalism's history situates these broadcast milestones within the broader arc of journalism's technological evolution.

Broadcast journalism is governed in many jurisdictions by regulatory frameworks that require licensing of spectrum use and impose public interest obligations on licensees. In the United States, the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934 established the Federal Communications Commission and defined the conditions under which broadcasters could operate.

Technology and Journalistic Practice

The technical infrastructure supporting journalism, from transmission towers and satellite uplinks to content management systems and mobile reporting equipment, is a direct concern of electrical and communications engineering. Research on digital journalism examines how digital networks have changed the speed, geographic reach, and economic model of news production, including the displacement of classified advertising revenue that had subsidized reporting operations for decades.

Applications

Journalism intersects with engineering and technical systems in a range of domains, including:

  • Radio and television broadcast transmission and spectrum management
  • Satellite and cable distribution systems for news networks
  • Digital content delivery networks serving online news platforms
  • Sensor and data journalism using public datasets and monitoring systems
  • Emergency public information systems and alert broadcasting