Index | Newspapers | Magazines | Born on the Web | ManyMedia | Commentary/Discussion

Born on the Web: Commentary/Discussion

Online or Not, Newspapers Suck by Jon Katz, originally in Wired magazine, suggests the Web alone is no solution to problems that keep whittling away newspapers' readership. (If you've been here before, note the address for this article has changed.)

Pretty soon, a Way New Journalism was announced by Joshua Quittner (also via Wired) in 1995, before Quittner resurfaced at Time writing a column for Digital Daily.

A few months later, Carl Steadman was recounting the failings of "way new journalism." in the online Feed Mag, March '96. (hit "cancel" if asked for a password)

Driving a Newspaper on the Data Highway by Mindy McAdams, is some early advice from an online publishing veteran and co-author of The Internet Handbook for Writers, Researchers, and Journalists.

The Evolution of the Newspaper of the Future by Chris Lapham (in 1995), observes that, "The real beauty of the new technology is its ability to enable newspapers to not only enhance their researching and reporting capabilities, but also to deliver a better, more audience-aware product in an immediate and inexpensive way."

Tabloids, Talk Radio, and the Future of News: Technology's Impact on Journalism, by Ellen Hume, an Annenberg Senior Fellow and director of PBS's Democracy Project, challenges journalists to keep an eye on the quality of their product, suggesting the "public journalism" movement as a possible model for the civic role of the press. (Unfortunately, the HTML file conversion of her report is flawed and barely readable.)

Katherine Fulton, founder of The Independent weekly in Raleigh, N.C., saw the online world coming as early as 1993, and told conventional journalists about it in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) and further investigated the new medium as a professor at Duke University. By 1996 she had plenty more to say about both the role of journalism and the business realities of publishing, under the title http://www.journalism.now -- A tour of our uncertain future.

More recently, Joel Simon and Carol Napolitano have taken a good look at digital reporting under the title We're All Nerds Now (CJR March/April 1999), including comments from pioneers in precision journalism or computer assisted reporting.


Index | Newspapers | Magazines | Born on the Web | ManyMedia | Commentary/Discussion
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School of Journalism and Mass Communication
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Last revision: 01/Mar/99