A summer Internship with Business Insider

Abstract

The author discusses her experiences as an intern at Business Insider magazine, and focuses on the potential strengths and weaknesses of new media in journalism. She addresses the concern expressed by Jurgen Habermas that rational critical dialogue is being replaced by passive consumerism. She argues that the new media features of Business Insider such as interactive slideshows, videos, and charts, interactive reporting and sourcing styles actually promote reader participation. She discusses how online Content Management Systems allow editors to correct and change articles at any time, and considers the associated ethical issues. Open-source reporting and what she calls “pro-am” or participatory journalism are additional ways Business Insider combats passive consumerism. The author also discusses the positive and negative aspects of online comment threads that range from the banal to the ugly to the insightful. She observes how the traditional lines between news and entertainment are blurred at publications like Business Insider and how Business Insider has joined media entities such as Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC in strongly identifying partisan editorial positions. The author includes links to the online content she wrote and edited.