Like an old married couple, outed in their ignorance of each other on
the TV quiz show Mr and Mrs, online journalists and traditional hacks
need to get their act together, or else there will be trouble. By Martin
Baker

Monday July 2, 2001

I fear that we are heading for a Mr & Mrs moment, and that tears will be
shed. I am referring, as any self-respecting postmodern sentimentalist
will tell you, to that fantastically poignant bit of the Mr & Mrs
gameshow where the wife discovers on national television that, after 35
years of marriage, her husband still doesn't know whether or not she
likes fish. They have been living together for ages, but their
existences are separate, the mutual incomprehension total.

Which brings me to the relationship between traditional media and the
online world. As yet, the barons of traditional media are still enjoying
their moment of schadenfreude. Internet and new media companies are
failing at a rate to satisfy the keenest of malicious appetites, and the
glitter of being the new, new thing has long worn off. But the internet
hasn't gone away; people haven't hurled their PCs out of the window
because the Nasdaq has cratered. The online world is alive and offers a
vast amount of information via an impressive array of gadgets. Yet you
don't need to be a fan of Mr & Mrs to work out that just because
television and newspaper companies have new media outlets they
necessarily understand what online journalism is all about.

Then again, it is still so relatively novel that to attempt a
comprehensive grasp of the nature of online journalism is pretty futile.
We are still dealing with an infant, and there are few hard and fast
rules - apart of course from the immutable axiom that anyone repeating
the cliche that "content is king on the internet" needs a fist rammed
very firmly down their throat.

The big, simple, first thing to note about online journalism and its
culture is that it is different. Everything about it is different, from
the bullshit it generates (de-scaling, low-hanging fruit, viral
marketing) to the style of writing, to the dress sense. Last year, I
interviewed Gordon Brown in his first live webcast from the Treasury.
Brown wore his usual suit, and I sported what the Daily Telegraph styled
the next day as the "internet uniform" of a plain jacket and black top
with no tie.

Of course, the press was particularly critical of Brown at the time, and
would have reviled him for not adopting the same sartorial stance as his
interviewer if he'd been sitting opposite a hedgehog in a pink
halter-neck top. But the point is that internet journalists do think of
themselves as a different breed and are recognised as such. If I'd been
interviewing Brown a year earlier, when I was working for a newspaper,
I'd have been pinstriped, booted and ready for inspection.

So is it really just a matter of form? Is online journalism the same
stuff as that produced by the hacks in the shabby business suits, the
only difference being that the newsroom is permanently on dress-down
day? Bob Atkins, a lecturer in journalism at Cardiff University, argues
that the conceptual approach of traditional and new is similar, but the
form is - or should be - radically different: "As pure journalism goes,
there is fundamentally no difference between the principles and the
skills required for traditional and online media. There is a big
difference in the way things are written, though. Online journalism
should be a lot closer to the spoken style, with more short and simple
sentences."

The medium itself dictates the style. Susanne Doyle, editor of
money.telegraph.co.uk, says online journalism is a hybrid of traditional
media: "You can write less formally than a newspaper, and sometimes a
broadcast style is more appropriate. I think people tend to skim-read
articles at first, and look at the screen almost as if watching TV.
Online journalism is almost a cross between print and broadcast, in that
articles are used as an archive by many readers, but then they are
participating in the site too by clicking what they want to see when
they want to see it, rather like switching television programmes."

There is an important corollary that flows from the chatty,
don't-move-that-dial nature of online media: old-fashioned newspaper
terms for journalistic scoops no longer apply. It simply doesn't make
sense (although people still do it) to scream "exclusive!" when flagging
up a story. True, a site might have got there first, but the story will
be exclusive for all of 15 minutes as the competition posts a "flash"
cover of the tale, and then sets to work to hammer out analysis or a
colour feature. It is the vividness and colour of the explanation and
the value of the news analysis that pioneering online journalists have
found attract a following.

Breaking news frighteningly fast is not essential, except for the
nerdish online investors who will be in and out of a stock in minutes on
the strength of a company announcement or set of results. But that
applies only to financial and investment sites, and the blood on the
virtual walls of Nasdaq has driven many online investors back to the
building society.

Another key difference is interactivity. Newspaper journalists like to
talk about the authority of print, and television journalists are all
stars at heart. The similarity is that they are both there to be revered
and observed, to be read and watched - or discarded and switched off.
But online journalists have a very direct and immediate relationship
with the site user, and there is no place to hide. If an article touches
a sore point or is flawed, you can be sure that the person on the other
end of the screen will be clicking the "Contact us" button.

Dealing with readers clearly plays a far greater part in Doyle's working
life than it did when she was in a traditional media office: "Working in
broadcast you seldom know what the response is to various news reports/
programmes, but in online journalism you'd know almost immediately.
"Readers will email with absolutely every point of view, point out if
there is a mistake or a technical issue - and you really have to
respond. There is much more immediacy - and the viewer isn't just
someone out there in the distance, but a person demanding some sort of
redress or reaction."

Working in this medium seems to have some serious disadvantages for
journalists. It's clearly far more transparent, far more democratic, and
offers less opportunity for one-eyed preening in front of the mirror. It
also happens to require considerable technical nous. It really isn't
good enough to write a piece and send it to the office - the ability to
insert a hyperlink, add a picture and format a pull-out quote are all
workaday essentials for anyone aspiring to competence. For the readers,
the benefits are manifest, providing they've got a good screen that
won't ruin their eyesight. And for the wise ones running the traditional
media businesses? There's clearly a way to go. There are exceptions,
notably the Wall Street Journal, which integrated its online operation
with the newspaper in a pretty slick way a long time ago. But overall,
online is still not understood by many of the mainstream media
organisations. I believe that it is the future of journalism, and unless
some serious effort is made in the boardroom to understand the potential
of the medium, it will be a 21st century allegory of Mr & Mrs, and end
in tears.


Justin........
My hindsight is 20/20.........



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