19/10/16 - Media Greenslade It's a great time to be a journalist, says Channel 4's Jon Snow

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/oct/19/its-a-great-time-to-be-a-journalist-says-channel-4s-jon-snow

Channel 4 News's most notable and famous anchor Jon Snow talks about how the current times are the most exciting but also the most terrifying times to be a journalist. He talks about how the exciting part of journalism is due to the fact that there are a huge amount of news stories being broken and reported about constantly with more and more new young and enthusiastic journalists joining the field every day. However, it's also terrifying due to the increase in areas of conflict such as the Middle East which has created a lot more threats for journalists trying to cover these areas.

One of the main influences that he talks about is Aleppo, and the young journalists behind the news platform who are a lot more multi skilled and use the new digital media to their advantage in new ways every day, such as blogs and films. This he believes has lead to an increase in use of citizen journalism and social media rather than traditional media platforms such as newspapers who says to no longer be the "bastions of truth" that they once were.

• Channel 4's Facebook page has received 1.3bn hits since the beginning of the year
•  Syria that has been “the most hit element of what we provide online”

Personally, I think it is absolutely refreshing to hear something positive about the engagement and enthusiasm of young people in the field of journalism, especially from an acclaimed and accomplished journalist the likes of Jon Snow. It's very interesting to see someone who has been in the media industry for several decades agree that the younger generation are evolving the way media works and the way audiences consume the platforms through social media which also then in turn induces citizen journalism.