24 Feb 09 Online Journalism – Interacitveold&new-newapproachestoaudience

Online Journalism – JOUR 3340

Class Notes – Engaging Readers February 26, 2009 Prof. Foote

Today’s Agenda  Website of the Day  Your Thursday Assignment  Be prepared to discuss: Crowdsourcing

 http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/  http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crow  http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070731niles -

 What Are Media Doing to Capture Readers Online & Offline

What’s Good? What Works?    

CNN.com WashingtonPost.com Politico.com National Journal – The Money Tracker

The Early Days – News Websites  The Evolution

 Mainly straight text, no graphics  Bulletin boards (BBS), forums ruled  Minimal investment  Late 70s/early 80s: VideoText

 Miami Herald: Viewtron  Belo: BISON – Belo Information Systems On-line  Progidy: Cowboys Content

 Knight Ridder, Tribune: $30 million  Regurgitation: What was in print showed up online  No staffs – Gungho geeks who become mavericks of their time

The Miami Herald, then owned by KnightRidder, invested $17mm in 1984

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Dedicated keyboard/terminal that could only be used for the videotext service. This equipment cost $600 to $900; later, as personal computing caught on,Viewtron would try to sell its services via IBM, Apple, or Commodore PCs. A television set to display the color images, which took time to load or paint A monthly subscription fee of $12 (the first month was free) A phone line to send information back to a central computer, for which the consumer initially paid $1 an hour

Source: Poynter.org: “Before there was the Internet, There was Viewtron”, by Howard Finberg, http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=52769

1993: September 2: Middlesex (Mass.) News launches first Internet gopher-based online newspaper. http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/carlson/history/ScreenShots/Fred_the_computer.jpg

January 1994: Salt Lake Tribune opens a BBS called Utah Online. http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/carlson/history/ScreenShots/utah_online.jpg

Who and What is Competing for Traditional Media’s Audience? Weeklies Magazines Local Websites Time Work Family Videos Movies Housework

Local Newspaper/ TV Station

Cable ISPs Direct Mail Bill Boards TV Yellow Pages Radio TelCos Software Cos.

Dai l y I nt er net Act i vi t i es Ac c ording to our February-April 2006 survey, 66% of Americ an adult internet users, about 97 million people, use the internet on an average day. Here are some of the things they do on a typic al day:

Perc ent of internet users who report doing this ÒyesterdayÓ

Most rec ent survey date

February-April 2006 Use the internet Send or read e-mail Use a searc h engine to find information G et news Surf the Web for fun C hec k the weather Do any type of researc h for your job

66 53 38 31 30 22 21

Dec-05 Dec-05 Dec-05 Dec-05 Nov-04 Dec-05

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking surveys (March 2000 Ð April 2006). Please note that the wording for some items has been abbreviated. For full question wording, please refer to the questionnaire.

http://people-press.org/report/282/online-papers-modestly-boost-newspaper-readership

http://people-press.org/report/282/online-papers-modestly-boost-newspaper-readership

http://people-press.org/report/282/online-papers-modestly-boost-newspaper-readership

Kaiser Family Foundation, Media Multitasking Among American Youth, December 2006

The Interactive Audience  Shorter lines of communication between journalists and audience  Traditional Media:  Readers v. Non-readers  Readers an ‘amorphous mass’  Defined audience – by geography  Circulation, ‘signal’

The Interactive Audience  Now:  Individual, personalized, direct  Email addresses for reporters  Tracking readers: Story by story Top Down Editors to Readers

Readers in Control Audience Participation

Interactive tools    

Web polls Discussion forums Blogs Personalization  Yahoo, Google

Participatory journalism - “We Media”

http://www.hypergene.net/wemedia/weblog.php?id=P36

Types of News Websites  Shovelware  What you read in the daily newspaper or see on TV is what you see on the website  Costs  Staffing  Lack of technology/content management system  Strategic decision

 All stories written in traditional inverted pyramid style  What are the pros & cons?

Types of News Websites  Periodic Updating    

Mainly shovelware with some exceptions Breaking News Sports stories/scores Some dedicated staff assigned

Types of News Websites  Continuous Updating  Combination of shovelware and original packages  Wire-service (AP, Reuters) operation mentality  Sports stories/scores  Special ‘web-only’ reports  Extensive interactive features, graphics, including audio and video  Full-time dedicated staff

Corporate Structure  Specific newspaper brands tied to the home town  Dallasnews.com  Washingtonpost.com  Nytimes.com

 Umbrella sites  Newhouse News’ Regional Approach  AlabamaLive.com  NJ.com  ClevelandLive.com

 Which approach is better? Does it matter?