INTERVIEWS
Ted Koppel
Net Gain
Introduction:
A great many of the Internet's 20-million-plus users consider Old Media's practice of top-down, father-knows-best journalism to be clunky, obsolete and irrelevant to their lives. And, in an age when anyone with
a computer and modem can be a virtual reporter, they're right. So does this mean that professional journalists — the middlemen in the
news equation — are expendable in a wired world? Hardly. Many Net users
want reporters, editors and news directors to bring their fact-checking
skills and other timeless journalistic values — trustworthiness,
accountability, balance, fairness — to this bright new medium. But they also want Old Media to jettison the tired, stale baggage of
traditional news culture. They want fewer, better filters and less spin
on the news. They want journalism professionals to grasp what's
essential to their lives — something that seems to be missing from
their daily newspapers and on the TV news. Increasingly, readers want to engage us in a dialogue about the news. Are we ready to listen? If so, the Net's ubiquitousness and democratic
tendencies have a lot to offer us as news providers. As author J.D. Lasica concludes, it's time for journalists to trade in
our gatekeeper role for a brand of Interactive Journalism that makes
readers true partners in the news process.
Michael Crichton stood before a lunchtime crowd at a National Press Club banquet in April 1993 and delivered a simple message to the movers and shakers of journalism: Change your news culture, or become fossils. Adapt to the new digital realities, or become museum relics. The author of "Jurassic Park" called upon news organizations to reinvent themselves, to abandon glitzy, sensationalistic "junk-food journalism" in favor of a sensitive, informed, responsive approach that empowers the reader and removes the artificial filters that distort or trivialize the news.
Crichton, who knows something about dinosaurs, issued a warning: "To my mind, it is likely that what we now understand as the mass media will be gone within ten years. Vanished, without a trace."
Since that day three and a half years ago, a lot of bits have passed under the virtual bridge. Consider:
• The Internet has exploded in popularity, attracting more than 20 million users, many of whom spend every free moment cruising the World Wide Web, the Net's flashy, graphic-friendly playground.
• Almost overnight, a new breed of information-providers — from niche-news purveyors like CNet and AT&T to more broad-based efforts from competitors like Microsoft — have jumped into the news pool, siphoning off subscribers, advertisers and employees from Old Media.
• In response to that impending threat, newspapers have stampeded onto the Web. The number of online newspapers has soared from a handful to about 800 in the United States alone, according to Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing, who closely tracks the online industry
So, then, Michael Crichton must be pleased with the news media's efforts to jack into the new electronic frontier. Yes?
"I think the major media are more out of touch than ever. And doing a worse job than ever. And receiving more public disdain than ever," Crichton says in an e-mail interview.
It's a conclusion most Americans would seem to endorse, according to public opinion polls. Slamming the media is a sport that's particularly popular in many quadrants of cyberspace.
For journalists like myself who spend a lot of time online, Crichton's critique is echoed a millionfold times in the digital byteways of the Internet.
On the Net, the level of discourse fluctuates wildly, from the thoughtful discussions on the WELL to the electronic food fights of Usenet. But a common theme voiced by many Netizens is that Old Media's practice of top-down, father-knows-best journalism is tired, clunky, obsolete and headed fast toward the scrap heap.
"A tremendous power shift is underway, and it's about our ability to connect with each other in new ways," Internet pioneer and author Howard Rheingold says in a telephone interview. "A personal computer, plugged into a telephone, creates a new communication medium, with unique properties and powers. The fact that you don't have to own a newspaper or TV station to broadcast what you think to anyone anywhere in the world is a significant political shift.
"The day the New York Times tells us all the news that's fit to print is over. Its era of dominance has passed, because the world changed."
What remains uncertain is what this new world heralds.
The media universe is changing, as Old Media smash up against the new digital realities. And while there have been entire forests of newsprint cleared for articles written about the new technologies — the dazzling bells and whistles of multimedia, the financial hurdles faced by online news, the Net's effect on reporting practices — there has been scant attention paid to the question of how the new media are transforming the message.
This may be a good time to draw a deep breath and consider some basic questions:
What will be the role of journalists when anyone with a computer and modem can lay claim to being a reporter, editor and publisher? Will professional journalists still be needed in an era when people can get their news "unfiltered"?
What are the ground rules for news in the free-for-all of cyberspace? Do the rituals and conventions of journalism that arose in an era of hot lead and Linotype have any relevance in a wired world?
Even more fundamentally, what is our job as journalists? Indeed, what is news in an era of information glut?
And whose news is it?
It's time for mainstream media to trade in their gatekeeper role for a reader-empowered brand of Interactive Journalism
This in-depth look at online journalism appeared as the cover story of the November 1996 issue of The American Journalism
Review. Here's an abridged version on the AJR site.
By J.D. Lasica
NEXT: Unfiltered News
Resources:
National Press Club
Excerpts of Crichton's speech, "The Mediasaurus," appeared in Wired magazine's October 1993 issue
CNet
AT&T
Microsoft
WELL
Howard Rheingold's home page
Other sections:
Online journalism: Writings, columns, special reports
Media Center: Online resources, favorite columnists
Research and reference tools
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