Adapting to the Internet

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The Internet has opened new doors for journalists and citizens alike. For example, print and TV reporters can now continually update breaking stories online. Today, many reporters post online versions of their stories first and then work on the traditional versions. Readers and viewers no longer have to wait for the morning paper or for the local evening newscast to stay current with important stories. Online reports can also be augmented with video or audio as well as additional information that would not fit in a printed article or a TV news story. Readers and viewers can thus see full interviews rather than just the selected quotes in the paper or the sound bites on the TV report.

However, the Internet has also presented new problems. For instance, it has encouraged print reporters to do e-mail interviews rather than leave the office to question a subject in person. Many editors worry that e-mail interviews lack the surprise or spontaneity that phone or in-person interviews have. Sources have time to think about their responses and thus may deliver less-than-honest comments. Often, some editors will allow e-mail interviews only when a phone or live interview is impossible.

The enormous amount of information available on the Internet has also made it all too easy for journalists to unwittingly copy work that other journalists have done. In addition, access to databases and other informational sites can keep reporters at their computers rather than out tracking down certain kinds of information, cultivating sources, and staying in touch with their communities. Blogging has become another double-edged sword. While blog posts enable journalists (and nonjournalists) to provide their opinions and analysis (thus freeing them from the constraints of neutrality), blogs often do not demonstrate much actual reporting or documenting stories with evidence. The immediacy of the Internet has moved some audiences away from print news, but it has also emphasized what newspapers can still do well: produce well-researched and fact-checked articles that go into greater depth than quick updates about breaking stories.

Perhaps most notable for journalists in the digital age are the demands that convergence has made on their reporting and writing. Print journalists are expected to carry digital cameras so they can post video along with the print versions of their stories (see “Converging Media Case Study: Digital Camera Journalism,”). TV reporters are expected to write print-style news reports for their station’s Web site to supplement the streaming video of their original TV stories. And both print and TV reporters are often expected to post the Internet versions of their stories first, before the versions they do for the morning paper or the evening news. Increasingly, journalists today are also expected to blog and tweet.