The Coming Explosion in News Online
Despite the fast-decline of the traditional newspaper industry, I predict a new era of influence, interest and credibility of online news resources that will lead to an exciting explosion of new online media sites.
Too many online media-oriented sites today – ranging from blogs to sites like Huffington Post – are run by people who, while not lacking in political or financial bias or motivation, have little or no journalistic training. Rumors are irresponsibly recycled over and over, again, as we have seen so many times, sometimes just because it’s good gossip that attracts visitors. That is not responsible journalism or news.
When we look at the closing of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for example, we see a newspaper that will go 100 percent online, and is committed to developing a new business model to generate much-needed revenue while building audience. But there will talented people laid-off, too. Chances are those people will take their news skills to new news sites in the near future that we cannot even image today.
What I am seeing is an exciting new era in America’s news industry, and the result will be better and more credible coverage.
As Mark Franek writes in the online Christian Science Monitor:
The problem with the Internet is not that there are too many writers. It’s that there aren’t enough gatekeepers with integrity, and there is no clear and consistent way to resolve disputes.
I predict that the news media we will witness evolving online very soon will bring with it integrity, accuracy, factual reporting, and all the important tenets of authentic journalism we have taken for granted in our daily newspapers.
Related posts:
- A Question of Trusted News Sources Online
- Interactive Online News Releases
- News Sites Embrace Blog Technology
- Obsolete Defined: Washington Post Online
- Time to Streamline Online Newsrooms
Category: Featured, News Media
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- Posts about Huffington Post as of March 18, 2009 » The Daily Parr | March 18, 2009
Very well said. There are so many factors to consider when looking into the future of News and how Society will ingest it. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in 2009.
The current print publishers must take the lead in creating this new online journalism. It is their responsibility to use their experience and human resources to build online news services.
Rethink your business models. Get online!
I hope you are right as many of us do believe, rightly or wrongly, that it was the news media itself having lost its integrity, accuracy, factual reporting and pushing perceived agendas that was the impetus for the creation of the many sites that exist such as the Huffington Post. These kinds of sites as you state, have no journalistic training and that survive on spreading rumors that are irresponsibly recycled again and again, as we have seen so many times, sometimes just because it’s good gossip that attracts visitors.
Nothing will change, however if the “news media” brings to the internet what helped to diminish and in some cases destroy it. I hope you are right for our sake.
Yes, this is “an exciting new era in America’s news industry, and the result will be better and more credible coverage.” I find myself rooting for the InDenverTimes.com in their quest for funding to be an online only news publication and for my own hometown paper, the Orange County Register, which has been making a big push online (while remaining a print publication).
Let’s hope that financing and integrity will prosper online!
I hope this is the case. I get most of my daily news online, but from print publishers, and I know that the high-quality reporting coverage I’m relying on is being paid for in large part by the ads viewed by their print readers, not by the less lucrative ads from the Web pages I’m viewing.
You’re right about the fact there will be more coverage. And I hope integrity wins the day, as you believe. If it doesn’t, two things will eventually happen: Lots of talented, relevant writers will be looking for work…and a paycheck. But will these sites be interested in paying talented writers market value (whatever that will be at a given moment)? Or, will they go for less talented, less interested in fact-checking writers they can get for pennies on the dollar?
And which “tive” wins out: Objective or Subjective?
I really enjoyed reading this story, thank you for sharing your insight and perspective.
TDC