The curse of the internet

I certainly don’t want to suggest that Thursday morning’s discussion was entirely negative, but a few points came up about the downside of news Web sites and advances in technology, from the perspective of reporters and editors.

For example, the ability to record every interview and put audio clips up online is great, except, as Lee Horwich from USA Today pointed out, someone has to take all the material - sometimes hours of tape - and edit it. We are making more work for ourselves, sometimes without a concurrent increase in resources or time for the journalists who have to do that work.

Several reporters said they often felt overwhelmed with all that was expected of them. If they are asked to write a news story for the paper that will also go on the Web site, write a blog about it, and put together some multimedia content, suddenly all the work suffers.

The issue of overwhelmed journalists comes up in reporting too. How does a reporter record an interview, take pictures and get notes for a story all at once?

The unlimited size of the “news hole” could be something of a mixed blessing too. Reporters now see the space on the Web site as an opportunity to write a 2,000-word story whenever they feel like it - but that may not be in the best interest of the readers, or the editors who have to check the story. The obvious answer, as someone pointed out, is to give the story the length it deserves

So it seems we’re just dealing with the same questions we’ve always dealt with in journalism - we’re just learning how to apply them in new media. How much space does a particular story warrant? The curse of the internet might be the temptation to write as long as you want (the lazy choice), but the advantage of the internet is that the story can get the length it deserves without worrying about how much space is left in the paper. Making that decision can only make the product better.

This goes beyond thinking about the length of a story. It is far more fundamental. Reporters and editors should be considering how best to tell a story online. It is about using the right tools for the right story for the audience. 

Reporters should asking themselves whether a story is best told in text, images, audio, video, graphics or a combination of elements. These questions should be asked before the reporter heads out of the newsroom on the story.

The internet offers tremendous potential for journalists to tell better stories and engage with the public in ways that were unimaginable a few years ago.