Internet grabs headlines from traditional media

New York City is home to three national television networks and two world-renowned daily newspapers, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Despite this abundance of journalistic talent, New York's various broadcasters and editors are concerned about how the Internet is changing the way news is presented. The Internet has caused a seismic shift in presentation, distribution and expression of news.

The New York New Media Association recently brought together a panel of experts to discuss how the Internet was changing the presentation of our news. Called "And that's the way it will be", it was presented by Tom Brokaw, the NBC News anchor.

"Television is just one medium that is in the midst of a great midlife-alteration," he told attendees at the sold-out seminar.

Until now, television broadcast pictures to the viewer who watched and listened. But the introduction of interactive television has allowed for viewer participation. Many of the news magazine programmes on US television now include viewers' comments received via e-mail as the show is on air. This brings an immediacy to the programme that was not possible prior to the Internet.

Walter Isaacson, managing editor of Time magazine, said the Internet hadn't hurt magazine sales just yet but it had made them more interactive.

The Internet also allows distribution of interviews that have been conducted. Time regularly receives thousands of e-mails from all over the world commenting on stories it has published.

Salon.com, the online magazine which last year broke the story of US Congressman Henry Hyde's past adultery, has found a similar experience with e-mail. "Salon is part of a constant feedback loop," said David Talbot, chairman and editor-in-chief.

"We receive e-mails from around the world that challenge us and provide us with corrections and criticisms. It keeps us honest," he said. He believes the Internet's mission is to engage people.

Steven Brill, editor-in-chief of Brill's Content, a magazine that provides press criticism, said democratisation of the Internet had occurred. "It means that no one is better than anyone else."

But he cautioned that the current state of play was not all positive. "The good thing about the Internet is that anyone can publish information because the barriers to entry are virtually non-existent. But for the same reason, it is not so good because it leaves people thinking that all information is the same and, it's not all trustworthy."

The Internet allows for a business model that is akin to someone deciding to launch a broadcast network that has trillions of competitors, said Mr Brill. "That to me cannot work unless you have a brand name," he said. "You have to get the eyeballs. Some people will build up reliable reputations, others won't."

Some of the panellists then discussed the uneasy balance in journalism between what people want to know and what the media think they should know. Some of what actually gets reported boils down to the commercial pressures news channels face.

What the Internet had done, said Mr Isaacson, was to destroy the gate-keepers. That is, those who decided what should be reported. He believes change has been a good thing. "Boy, did we need that destruction," he said.

Mr Talbot said it took upstarts like Salon.com to "continually challenge the establishment. Without the Internet, the vitality of news would be less than it is today," he said.

Devising an economic model for broad-based news organisations "is tough" said Leah Gentry, editorial director of new media at the Los Angeles Times. She doubted if many broad-based organisations would spin out specialised websites but she expected many newspapers would struggle when they saw revenues from their classified advertising eroding.

Mr Brill maintained that the threat of new media was directly aimed at daily newspapers. "Classified ads are key," he said, because they could be posted on the Internet. He believed newspapers ought to have "cannibalised themselves from the beginning to get there first".

Mr Isaacson said it was very important to find a way to change content for the Web. "If you continue to have pure advertising support you need to really have smart reporting. You don't want to be totally dependent on advertising," he said and Mr Talbot agreed. He said advertising could support terrific journalism online.

The final discussion revolved around monthly magazines and whether their heyday was over. "Having a monthly is ridiculous," said James Cramer, co-founder of TheStreet.com, an online financial news site.

He was also a co-founder of Smart Money, the monthly financial magazine. In the new era of the Internet, monthlies can't compete," he said, and "dailies aren't competing as well as we thought."

The reason, he said, was that newspapers such as the New York Times weren't committed to the Internet. "Internally, they know they can't make money off of the Web," he said.

However, Mr Isaacson remained optimistic about the prospects for a news weekly magazine like Time.

"I find magazines provide something so totally different from the Internet that they can survive quite well.

"The Internet challenges those who give you instant gratification. As much as I love the Web, it's not suited to narrative story-telling. People like that, and that's what we do."