Mr. Shelton speaks at UNA campus

We were honored to have Mr. Shelton at our campus on Tuesday, April 26th and he talked to us in detail how journalism has changed from when he was in the journalism world to now.  I made a summary of his presentation and the points that stood out to me of what his presentation was pertaining to the journalism aspect as well as the PR side of things.

Cedric Walls

4/27/11

"If we lost our credibility, then we will have nothing." This was stated from Mr. Shelton during his speaking at our campus of the University of North Alabama. He is a pioneer to several newspaper companies throughout Alabama and the southeast region and has covered topics that range from the Civil Rights movement to the local news that meant the best of the local people. He stated that newspapers will always have credibility because after every article the person knows who wrote it and how he or she feels about it. He described it to how people that write anonymous blogs about certain situations and when you, the people, want to know who wrote it the source is anonymous to the general public.
Newspapers will always be around because of how much local news means to the local people. For example, the south has a deep passion for their respected high school football teams. National papers do not devote their time to that but the local newspaper does and the towns that are covered know it. People say that newspapers are dying out but as Mr. Shelton explained it is like the Internet is steadily declining credibility to news because of its sources of information that are "rumors" and not factual statements. Any ordinary person can now put their opinion online and the media will take it as a potential rather than taking the time to resource it and see if it is true.