Archives for March 2002

Now that we’ve hit bottom, where do we go from here?

This column appeared March 25, 2002, in the Online Journalism Review to kick off its new The Future of News section. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Now that the online news industry has survived the cyberspace swoon and woken up to the Mother of All Hangovers, what’s next?

Opinion leaders in the online news business say they’re cautiously upbeat about the industry’s long-term prospects. While no one is saying that Web publishers have found the path to the promised land, many say the pervasive doom and gloom of 2001 — marked by cutbacks, closures and contortions — is being replaced by a sense that the worst is over. [Read more…] about After the 2002 bubble burst for online news

Outsourced sports solutions free up news sites to focus on the local

This column appeared March 19, 2002, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Do you know the No. 1 sports event for online sports fans? Nope, not the Super Bowl. Not the World Series.

March Madness — or, for the uninitiated, the NCAA college basketball tournament.

And that presents something of a challenge for thin-as-a-wafer online sports staffs. How do you cover 64 college teams with the depth and tenacity demanded by hoops-crazed Net denizens?

For more than 100 online newspapers, the solution has been to leverage the print paper’s sports staff, use the wire services — and sign up with The Sports Network, an outfit in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, that you’ve almost certainly never heard of.

Peek under the hood of an online news site and you’ll likely find a handful of third-party vendors. But few have as compelling a story as The Sports Network, founded 22 years ago as an audiotext service for newspapers. Somewhat remarkably, the Net — and the thirst of online users for instantaneous information — has helped transform this small company into a news service with a global reach. [Read more…] about Third party sites’ contributions to sports coverage