journalism Archives - Page 6 of 8

Video comes to the Web

CNN, the New York Times & APTV have begun experimenting with streaming video This column appeared in the January-February 1998 issue of The American Journalism Review. Quietly, without much fanfare, online news sites have begun making good use of a revolutionary new information tool. It’s called video. Until now, anyone seeking to capture the flavor and texture of a news event was limited to surfing the old-fashioned way: with a TV set and remote control. News sites on the Web have offered the occasional QuickTime video, but that required long download times, typically several minutes for just a 30-second clip — hardly worth the trouble.

Preserving old ethics in a new medium

To avert ethical problems in cyberspace, cling to traditional journalism values This column appeared in the December 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. I was interviewed on the topic of Internet news sources’ trustworthiness by Bloomberg Radio on April 4, 1998. If ethics are rarely debated during the daily miracle of churning out a newspaper, the subject is rarer still in the whiz-bang, techno-toy-driven realm of new media. While all the old ethical rules surely still apply in new media, the Internet also presents dilemmas that never existed in a print world: reporters lurking invisibly in chat rooms; ad links embedded into editorial copy; the posting of private tragedies in news archives until the end of time; tracking users’

So you want to be an online journalist

Some tips on how to prepare for a fast-changing field This column appeared in the November 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. This column also appeared as a chapter in the book “Writing.com: Creative Internet Strategies to Advance Your Writing Career,” by Moira Anderson Allen (Allworth Press, August 1999). Agood portion of the e-mail I receive these days is from young people who ask: How do I break into online journalism? I’m always gladdened by the question, because it suggests that new media have become permanent fixtures in our news and information galaxy. Increasingly, young people see the Internet as a taken-for-granted part of their daily routine — and more relevant to their lives than one-way big media like

Speeding the news on the Internet

Ted Koppel & Bruce Koon warn of the dangers of trading accuracy for immediacy This column appeared in the October 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. As online news matures, we’re beginning to see Web publications evolve into true news channels rather than warmed-over digital versions of their pulp parents. While that term “channels” may seem strange when applied to an online newspaper, a year from now millions of us will be getting the news from channels we’ve chosen on our personal computers. Already, the New York Times and ABC News are the premium news channels on America Online. In August, Netscape released its new Netcaster browser, which will “push,” or “Webcast,” more than 700 channels of information from

Why do news sites ignore travel coverage?

More and more travel sites are cropping up on the Web, but they’re coming up short This column appeared in the July-August 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. As online news matures, we’re beginning to see Web publications evolve into true news channels rather than warmed-over digital versions of their pulp parents. One of the biggest trends in cyberspace during the past six months has been the rise of Web sites that take advantage of readers’ booming interest in travel news. But you’d never know it by visiting the travel sections of almost any online newspaper. At the annual meeting of the Society of American Travel Writers editors council in the Bahamas in April, it became clear that when

Covering breaking news on the Web

If they’re to remain relevant in the Digital Age, online news organizations must begin to seriously cover the news as it happens This column appeared in the June 1997 issue of The American Journalism Review. Should online news organizations cover breaking news? If they want to remain relevant in the digital age — especially among a new generation of readers — they’d better get used to the idea. Ben Compaine, a professor of telecommunications at Temple University, recently asked the students in his Cybermedia course whether they believed online newspapers would become the dominant provider of news and information on the local scene. The students had serious doubts. The reason? The stale brand of news now being served up by

Ted Koppel: Will online news ‘bite us in the ass’?

The veteran ‘Nightline’ anchor has some words of warning for online reporters eager to reinvent the wheel of journalism Immediacy has never been a strong suit of Web news among the mainstream media. But in the coming months, dozens of content providers — from giants like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to small-town weeklies and dailies — will team up with Netscape, Microsoft, PointCast and other push-news services to broadcast their own “channels” of breaking news right to a user’s desktop. That promises to fundamentally reshape the online news landscape. What risks do these traditional print organizations face in moving toward a broadcast model of Net news? I posed the question to Ted Koppel, whose 1996

Net gain

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. It was considered groundbreaking for its day. Introduction Agreat 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

James Fallows: The Net will transform — not displace — mainstream media

The noted media critic and former editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report discusses the future of online journalism Harvard-educated, a Rhodes Scholar, a former chief White House speech writer (for Jimmy Carter), former Washington editor of The Atlantic Monthly and former editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, James Fallows is one of the nation’s foremost press critics, on the strength of his 1996 book, “Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy.” He responded to questions on the state of the online media in an e-mail interview on May 7, 1996. In an “On the Line” online interview earlier this year you said one advantage of the Internet is that it gives people “the ability to find