Vol. 54 No. 4 NIEMAN REPORTS Winter 2000 THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION FOR JOURNALISM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY 4 The Internet, Technology and Journalism Peering Into the 6 Technology Is Changing Journalism BY TOM REGAN Digital Future 9 The Beginning (and End) of an Internet Beat BY ELIZABETH WEISE 11 Digitization and the News BY NANCY HICKS MAYNARD 13 The Internet, the Law, and the Press BY ADAM LIPTAK 15 Meeting at the Internet’s Town Square EXCERPTS FROM A SPEECH BY DAN RATHER 17 Why the Internet Is (Mostly) Good for News BY LEE RAINIE 19 Taming Online News for Wall Street BY ARTHUR E. ROWSE 21 While TV Blundered on Election Night, the Internet Gained Users BY HUGH CARTER DONAHUE, STEVEN SCHNEIDER, AND KIRSTEN FOOT 23 Preserving the Old While Adapting to What’s New BY KENNY IRBY 25 Wanted: a 21st Century Journalist BY PATTI BRECKENRIDGE 28 Is Including E-Mail Addresses in Reporters’ Bylines a Good Idea? BY MARK SEIBEL 29 Responding to E-Mail Is an Unrealistic Expectation BY BETTY BAYÉ 30 Interactivity—Via E-Mail—Is Just What Journalism Needs BY TOM REGAN 30 E-Mail Deluge EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE BY D.C. DENISON Financing News in 31 On the Web, It’s Survival of the Biggest BY MARK SAUTER The Internet Era 33 Merging Media to Create an Interactive Market EXCERPT FROM A SPEECH BY JACK FULLER 35 Web Journalism Crosses Many Traditional Lines BY DAVID WEIR 37 Independent Journalism Meets Business Realities on the Web BY DANNY SCHECHTER 41 Economics 101 of Internet News BY JAY SMALL 43 The Web Pulled Viewers Away From the Olympic Games BY GERALD B. JORDAN Building New 45 Not Just a Newspaper on the Web BY ANDREA PANCIERA Homes for News 47 Broadband Technology Brings News Video to the Web BY JONATHAN KLEIN 50 The Wired Revolution BY KATIE KING 52 Multimedia Reporting in a Never-Ending News Cycle BY JACKIE BARRON 53 Protesters Develop Their Own Global Internet News Service BY JOHN TARLETON 55 Revealing What’s Happening in Schools EXCERPT FROM A SEMINAR BY JOHN GAGE Cover illustration by Deborah Smiley incorporating incunabulum of Johann de Amerbach, printed in 1488, and an engraving of Johann Gutenberg from Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises, printed in 1683. Helping Reporters’ 57 Computers Help to Transform Statistics Into Stories BY MIKE BERENS Fingers Do Some 59 Training Journalists to Use Technological Tools in Reporting BY BRANT HOUSTON Walking 61 Looking for Help in All the Right Places BY PATRICIA A. COLEMAN 62 The Internet as a Reporter’s Tool BY JIM MORRILL 63 Gathering Context and Contacts BY BILL GRAVES 64 Training Tomorrow’s Journalists in a Global Medium BY JEROME AUMENTE Developing a 65 It’s the Old West in the New East BY RAKESH KALSHIAN Global Interactive 67 Digital Dividends for Journalism in Africa BY TANYA ACCONE Dialogue 70 A Glimpse at Digital Resistance BY ANDRÁS VÁGVÖLGYI 71 Technology Replaces Legs and Ropes at The Bangkok Post BY SONGPOL KAOPATUMTIP 73 Coffee and Copy at Asian Internet Cafés BY PHILIP J. CUNNINGHAM 74 Journalists’ Use of the Internet Bubbled Up From Underground BY ANDREAS HARSONO 76 Le Monde Moves a Big Story to Its Web Site BY FRANÇOISE LAZARE 78 Journalist’s Trade 79 Caught in a Master Narrative BY RICHARD WEXLER 80 Child Welfare Reporting: Things Sources Say That Almost Always Aren’t True BY RICHARD WEXLER 82 Press Coverage and Public Perception BY NINA BERNSTEIN 84 Confidentiality Acts to Shield Abuse in Foster Care BY PATRICIA CALLAHAN 87 Fighting to Break the Barrier of Confidentiality BY JANE HANSEN 88 Goliath Arrives and a Few Davids Depart BY BLAIR TINDALL 90 Journalists Won’t Miss This ‘Deadline’ BY DON AUCOIN 92 International Journalism 92 Moving From Soviet Domination to Press Freedom BY JOHN MAXWELL HAMILTON 94 Political Leanings Shape Newspaper Coverage BY MICHAEL ELKIN 3 Curator’s Corner 96 Nieman Notes 96 A Photojournalist Portrays a Changing Community BY NURI VALLBONA 98 Class Notes End Note From Carbon Copies to E-Mail BY RICHARD DUDMAN Curator’s Corner Journalism in the Era of the Web It’s feisty and combative, but is it compatible with journalism’s highest standards? By Bob Giles ainstream news organizations are struggling to ap- upstart dot-coms. Those with insufficient capital or marginal ply old-fashioned news standards to the Web, but journalistic reputations or weak marketing strategies are Mare discovering it is not easy to translate the virtues being weeded out. Among the survivors are the mainstream of accuracy, balance and clarity to a medium where the news organizations that have the resources to build power- advantages of speed and timeliness prevail. ful Web sites and to insure that these platforms reflect the Web technology has strengthened the traditional watch- rigorous standards by which their print publications are dog functions of journalism by giving reporters efficient written and edited. ways to probe more deeply for information. The capacity to Second are efforts by online journalists to craft standards search documents, compile background and historical con- for the Web. The Online News Association is beginning a text, and identify authoritative sources has expanded the project to develop strong guidelines, including recommen- reporter’s toolbox. It also has introduced a fundamentally dations for how they can be applied and monitored. A grant different culture built on interactivity, fewer rules, and fewer from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation will enable limits. the Online News Association to hire a project director and Speed and timeliness once were the strength of newspa- meet a deadline of October 2001 for the guidelines it pers. The wire services built their reputations on being first recommends. with the big stories, which people typically found in their Rich Jaroslovsky, president of the Online News Associa- local papers. The immediacy of television took that edge tion and managing editor of The Wall Street Journal Interac- from the printed press. Now the Web has established its own tive, says there is “a lot steam behind the project.” Too many advantages of speed and timeliness; and in doing so it has online news decisions are being made “by the seat of the enabled newspapers to come full circle by posting breaking pants,” Jaroslovsky says, “rather than having a reason for the news and extending their brands through such innovations decision. We hope to develop a document that doesn’t direct as online afternoon editions. but persuades,” not just journalists but also those who are At the intersection of traditional journalism and the Web, working in other online cultures and making distinctions attempts to apply the standards of the traditional newsroom between news and commerce. encounter such other values as freedom, irreverence, advo- The third, and perhaps the most far-reaching influence on cacy and attitude. Web journalists argue that the Olympian journalistic standards, is the interactivity that results when tones of the traditional press don’t work online. They liken journalists put their e-mail addresses on the Web. E-mail can their new medium to the true spirit of the First Amendment bring instant feedback to a story just posted as well as to one and observe that it harkens back to a time when newspapers that is read in the newspaper over coffee in the morning. were feisty and combative. Ann Compton of ABCNews.com Some reporters are constructing barriers to such engage- describes the essential difference between her online staff ment with readers, preferring instead to not have e-mail or and the network’s television journalists: “We write more to be shielded by a filter that lets through only the messages brightly. We throw in more slang. There is a richness to the they think they want to have. dot-com coverage that you really can’t do on television.” E-mail enables reporters and editors to hear from people Similar comparisons can be made between the Web and who may know something about the story and who can share daily newspapers. an authoritative perspective, provide additional sources or Is such “richness” compatible with the highest standards raise the possibility that the story may be unbalanced or of journalism? Can the freewheeling, provocative, irreverent unfair. The potential for such interactivity is that it can nature of the Web adapt to a culture whose traditions have contribute to raising the level of journalistic performance. been shaped by a more sober, structured medium? Jon Katz, a Web commentator who writes for Slashdot.com, The process of establishing standards online is moving says, “The surprising thing to me is the degree to which I am along, influenced by three developments. First is the reality held accountable by readers for what I am doing. Whatever that the dominant news Web sites will be run by the old you are writing, your column makes its way to the most media—the traditional news organizations such as daily knowledgeable people on the subject…. What you learn is newspapers, newsmagazines and network and major cable your column is not the last word, it’s the first word.” ■ television outlets. What makes this a reality is the influence of the marketplace, which has been especially harsh to [email protected] Nieman Reports / Winter 2000 3 The Internet, Technology and Journalism Peering Into the Digital Future Our journey into the digital future begins with an essay by Tom Regan, associate editor of The Christian Science Monitor’s Web site. His advice: Remember that technology is changing journalism, “as it always has;” wireless is the next publishing realm, and the Web—as a news distribution method—is (almost) already dead.