Web blurs lines between broadcast, print media 

It’s my prediction that by 2050 there will be PhD programs at prestigious universities focused on “How the Internet has Impacted (fill in the blank).” So pervasive – and socially complex – is the World Wide Web that while the question seems to come up constantly it still boggles the mind, prompting a pretty obvious and immediate answer: “Wow. It’s changed everything.”

  Undaunted, a bunch of journalists got together under the auspices of the Idaho Press Club Aug. 14 to take a stab at figuring out how the Internet has impacted television news. Pretty quickly, however, it became clear the Internet’s impact on TV has just as much to do with broadcast journalism as it does print.

  The Newspaper Association of America lists thousands of daily and weekly newspapers with Web sites and, according to the Pew Research Center’s State of the News Media 2008 report, more than 59 million people visited a newspaper Web site in the third quarter of last year – up 3.7 percent from 2006.

  Unsurprisingly, for a multimedia outlet, television is well suited to the Web – the Pew study said 97 percent of all TV stations are online, with 98 percent reporting local news.

  While there’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about the fact that newspapers and TV stations have gone online (there are 70 million blogs in the world, after all), what is unique is that for the first time print and broadcast journalists are able to provide essentially the same products. Online newspaper stories are increasingly incorporating video and sound, while broadcast stories on the Web are by and large text-based. The Craigslist model has also given TV the ability to tap into an advertising market traditionally a sustaining force for print: classifieds, a development that the Pew study says is greatly exacerbating the decline in newspaper profits.   

  In other words, TV news and print journalism are evolving into the same animal, and the evolution is taking place in the primordial stew of the Web.

  “We’re finally out there with the [channel] 7s, and the 6s and 2s,” said Idaho-Press Tribune Managing Editor Vickie Holbrook, saying that laptops, digital cameras and remote Web site uploads have revolutionized the way her reporters work.

  The effect this has had on newsrooms – especially in print media – is dramatic. Where once reporters had at least a day to file stories, they’re now expected to produce a steady stream of content to fuel the Web product and keep up with their broadcast counterparts – a development in itself worth mentioning. Don Day, of KTVB, said while outlets like the Statesman once squared off against competitors in their own medium and demographic, the Web is expanding the playing field – media of all types must now compete for clicks, views and revenue.

But what effect has that had on the quality and style of coverage? That point wasn’t discussed in much detail at the Aug. 14 meeting, but the Pew study lays out a scenario that seems to ring true:

  As newspapers and TV stations find themselves increasingly occupying the same media space they’ve both had to scramble to reinvent their professions and business models, while at the same time cutting back on reporting and resources. (The study quotes McClatchy Company chief news exec Howard Weaver comparing this to “changing the oil in your car while you’re driving down the freeway.” McClatchy owns The Idaho Statesman)

  The result has been a shrinking number of news people being asked to do more in less time with fewer resources. And that’s both good and bad.

  The good? Both broadcast and print newsrooms are becoming far more innovative and experimental – incorporating technology and techniques unheard of even 10 years ago. (A prime example is eastern Idaho’s News Channel 8 wireless internet news gathering, a system that lets reporters transmit live streaming video over a wireless connection at near-broadcast quality.) 

  The bad? Time and resource constraints have generally resulted in a narrowing of news focus and contributed to a general decline in investigative reporting.

  Pointing to the fact that a quarter of the 2007 news hole was filled with stories on the war in Iraq and the 2008 campaign, the Pew study seems to suggests that as print and broadcast drift closer together their competition for the same stories will have something of a chilling effect on more in-depth coverage of trends and events (think: car crashes, fires, murder and rape).

  And if, as KTVB’s Don Day said, “the race is to tell the audience first,” and KIFI General Manager Mark Danielson’s statement is true that the goal should be to become “the sole information provider,” news consumers looking to the Web for quality journalism may have to diversify their sources.   

  The Pew study agrees but adds a note of caution: “The Internet offers the promise of aggregating ever more sources, but its value still depends on what those originating sources are providing. Even as the media world has fragmented into more outlets and options, reporting resources have shrunk.”

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