Transition to online journalism inevitable
The world of print journalism is evaporating. The paper versions of The Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer are gone forever; my hometown newspaper in San Antonio, the Express-News, now has a staff roughly the same size as that of The Rice Thresher. Time reports that the Boston Globe is losing $1 million dollars a week, and rumor has it that even the The New York Times is burdened by enormous debts.Many news outlets, like the Post-Intelligencer, are switching to online-only formats. Those print media sources lucky enough to survive write columns about the inferiority of Internet news sites. An April article by Atlantic Monthly reported, "In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, nearly two-thirds say the Internet is hurting journalism more than it is helping." One anonymous respondent told Atlantic that the Internet "has blurred the line between opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment is imperiled."
The Reuters Handbook of Journalism's section on Internet news reporting has a special section entitled, "Is it a hoax?" explaining to aspiring journalists that they need to be wary of false news stories online.
There is a good bit of truth in this worry, of course. Political crises have been caused by chain e-mails, malicious discussion-board rumors and Sarah Palin's Facebook page. But the competitiveness and sheer diversity of the Internet's voices can act both as a divisive tool and as a means of honing in on the truth. This is the principle behind Wikipedia: With a large enough group of honest users looking to find the facts, eventually the facts will be found.
And the Internet's massive power for recognizing spin has helped it scoop the print media several times. Matt Drudge was the first person to report that Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were having an affair, and Dan Rather retired shortly after bloggers revealed that he had presented forged documents as evidence for a major news story.
Lying unstated behind the fear is the simple fact that the media is afraid of the Internet. Print journalists (and TV reporters, after Rather's downfall) worry about the competition and enter the medium with hesitation. But the truth is that the rest of us are already there.
News Web sites like BBC Online, Politico and the Huffington Post, as well as online magazines like Slate are already huge destinations for readers like us. The future of journalism is online, and we should get used to it. We should also build models which will enable important reporting and analysis to proceed online with integrity.
The path to that goal begins, for students like us, here at Rice. Since last year the Thresher has hosted interactive online content, including comments sections, slideshows and polls. With its new Twitter feeds and sports blog, the paper has expanded its online content exponentially within the last year. The Thresher also runs some articles as online exclusives, which are often read by many Web surfers with no connection to the Rice community.
The Rice Standard is, if anything, even further ahead. The Standard's new online edition rolls out on Sept. 14, with a slate of online content, multimedia, discussions and over two dozen regular bloggers. The Standard's business plan is to be not merely a source of engaging writing but a laboratory for the creation of new content by student bloggers, staff writers and even guests.
The potential of the new medium is enormous. Last year, as a printed publication, the Standard conducted the most comprehensive political poll in Rice memory, when over 400 students told the magazine about their voting plans in the 2008 election. Now an online format makes mass participation in studies of student opinion even simpler.
The Rice community has long lacked a stable online new-media community, especially since some residential college discussion boards have been flooded with spam. The Thresher and the Standard are both looking for creative ways to meet this void, and to do so quickly. In their different ways both publications are providing Rice with a new model of media. Before the writers, reporters and artists of our campus community graduate, they have a chance to prepare for the media world's new challenges and opportunities.
Brian Reinhart is a Wiess College junior and Thresher calendar editor.
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