Do New Media Make the Practice of Journalism More or Less a Profession?

This review examines the role of new media in the ongoing debate about journalism being a profession or not. The paper gives an overview of professionalism, contending issues in the journalistic profession debate, the new media, and the influence of new media in the debate. Drawing from a huge body of literature on new media usage, journalism, professionalism and practical examples, the paper contends that the new media contribute for and against journalistic professionalism. In terms of contributing for journalistic professionalism, it is observed among other things that the new media provide tools that improve journalism practices, making journalism significantly socially responsible to society. This is a core criterion of professionalism. In terms of contributing against journalistic professionalism, the paper contends inter alia that the extreme freedom associated with the new media render many people, without any formal journalistic training, journalists. With this, very many cases of unethical practices are the case. Similarly, the nature of new media makes it extremely difficult to regulate its usage. All these are in opposition to a number of general criteria of professionalism. With these overwhelming evidences, the position of the paper is that, at present, the new media work against journalistic professionalism than for it. Key words: Debate, journalism, new media, non-profession, profession.

Influence of the Escherichia coli oxyR gene function on λ prophage maintenance

In Escherichia coli hosts, hydrogen peroxide is one of the factors that may cause induction of λ prophage. Here, we demonstrate that H2O2-mediated λ prophage induction is significantly enhanced in the oxyR mutant host. The mRNA levels for cI gene expression were increased in a λ lysogen in the presence of H2O2. On the other hand, stimulation of the pM promoter by cI857 overproduced from a multicopy plasmid was decreased in the ΔoxyR mutant in the presence of H2O2 but not under normal growth conditions. The purified OxyR protein did bind specifically to the pM promoter region. This binding impaired efficiency of interaction of the cI protein with the OR3 site, while stimulating such a binding to OR2 and OR1 sites, in the regulatory region of the pM promoter. We propose that changes in cI gene expression, perhaps in combination with moderately induced SOS response, may be responsible for enhanced λ prophage induction by hydrogen peroxide in the oxyR mutant. Therefore, OxyR seems to be a factor stimulating λ prophage maintenance under conditions of oxidative stress. This proposal is discussed in the light of efficiency of induction of lambdoid prophages bearing genes coding for Shiga toxins