Fergus Cassidy

Oui media

I'M having a bit of a celebration this weekend. It's more or less a year since I started fumbling around with html and managed to get a web site up and running.

Besides the fiddling around with bits and pieces of code and grappling with servers, domain names and other technical head wreckers, I must admit that the first couple of months were strange and unsettling.

It just seemed so different from the print experience. After a sizeable chunk of my working life spent in newspapers and magazines, having my own publishing outlet started off as an experiment but ended up as a way of life. So much so that it's now impossible for me to imagine not having a web site.

But the big difference I've noticed is to do with the comparisons between online and offline journalism. Sure it might seem like the same thing - what appears in print is more or less the same that appears online.

But when someone walks into a shop today there is a limited amount of Sunday newspapers to choose from. Plenty of them there alright, but you choose from within the range on sale. On the web, the sky's the limit. The amount of journalists' material on the web is staggering. Either available through publications they write for or increasingly through their own personal web sites.

It wasn't all that long ago that soothsayers predicted that the internet would be the death knell for newspapers. With publications offering content for free and spending ridiculous sums of money on their web sites it certainly looked as though those publications were taking the threat of the net very seriously.

As reality hit home, however, the money ran out and a lot of publications became subscription only. Quite a few even bit the dust. The business models of selling newspapers (and advertising) on the net just wasn't working.

To my mind, the ability of readers to choose from an unlimited selection of material on the web is one of the major differences to print. Coverage of the war in Iraq showed how people search for sources of information found well outside the ambit of print publications. The immediacy of that information is also a crucial aspect.

Even though it is still early days, there are changes already in how the internet is impacting on journalism. A massive increase in freelance and independent writing is already apparent, but besides this the web has become an important tool for journalists.

Results from a recent survey by the Indiana University School of Journalism [1] pointed to this new reality. More than 8 out of 10 journalists surveyed said that they used the web at least once a week to keep up with news by reading other news organisations.

Roughly 75% said that they communicated via email with readers, viewers or listeners. The same figure was given for those who regularly check facts on stories by using the web. About half said they searched for story ideas weekly and 33% used the web to download raw data from computer databases. Interestingly, one of the lowest uses was for interviewing via email, which had only a 14% response.

The net is also beginning to blur the differences between journalists who earn their living working for recognised media outlets and those who would not necessary call themselves journalists, but who use the web for transmitting their own work. This after all, was the great promise of the internet, where anyone with a computer and modem could become a publisher.

Once an open, two-way system of communication like the net appeared, it was only a matter of time before the old saying that "freedom of the press only belongs to those that own one" would diminish in relevance.

The upsurge in the last year or so of web logs, or blogs as they've been called, has been one of the fastest growing trends on the web in recent years. Putting a more precise definition on something that was previously was called a home page, has been helpful in terms of understanding what blogs are.

To date most blogs have been used by writers to post snippets of information they think might be of interest to others. What I find interesting about this is that important elements of journalism have been imported. The citing of sources is one parallel that comes to mind.

Blogging is beginning to develop its own distinctive culture, and already there are discussions and analysis of what exactly that culture involves. And journalism is heavily influencing that process. Honesty, fairness, minimising harm and accountability are providing a backdrop for bloggers and reveal that the best and valuable aspects of journalism will continue to be found on the web. [2]

In highlighting that point, prominent journalist and blogger Dan Gillmor, who is on the record as saying that his readers "know more than I do", is writing a book called Making the News: What Happens to Journalism and Society When Every Reader Can be a Writer, and is inviting people to take part [3].

In referring to the internet as a publishing medium Gillmor said that "these tools give us the ability to take advantage, in the best sense of the word, of the fact that our collective knowledge and wisdom greatly exceeds any one person's grasp of almost any subject. We can, and must, use that reality to our mutual advantage".



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LINKS

[1] Part of the American journalist survey, on how journalists are using the net.

[2] CyberJournalist.net has created a model bloggers' Code of Ethics, by modifying the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

[3] More details on journalist Dan Gillmor's new book and his invitation to readers to take part.