A Web of news virtues: how the Internet redefines journalism

Publishers’ determination to make a profit from the Internet raises questions about exactly what this wonderful new toy might be useful for – very few websites have yet turned a profit. Is it a shiny new vehicle for old, well travelled roads or a hyper-dimensional space jalopy carting the same old ore to undreamed-of worlds?

Regardless of the cargo, it seems clear that one effect of the advent of the Internet has been a challenge to the moguls of traditional media: change the way you do things or stay where you are. New players have created new models for business, new means to motivate, organise and inform the public, and new thinking about the nature of human interaction. The nature of publication has changed and the scope of readership has changed, and with those factors the definition of journalism has changed.

Introductory journalism and media texts speak of ‘enduring news values’ – the things that make news interesting to the public. They are variously listed, but can be basically defined by the following seven characteristics: timeliness, prominence, human interest, novelty, impact, proximity and conflict. These are the features by which the media have, to date, defined their audiences and chosen their lead stories.

But how are those characteristics reflected in the usage figures of the Internet? Do these features of news coverage also define the priorities with which people use Internet content? Perhaps search engine keyword figures will shed some light on public interest in that medium. These figures are far from perfect, of course. They only tell us what people who have access to the Internet but don’t know where to go, are looking for. Nonetheless, they indicate some degree of news value.

According to Lycos, the top ten searches for the week ending July 22 were 1) Pokemon, 2) Big Brother, 3) Survivor, 4) Dragonball, 5) Britney Spears, 6) The X-Men, 7) The British Open, 8) Diablo, 9) WWF, and 10) Tattoos. Clearly, this is evidence that readers’ interests in things that are heavily marketed global phenomena have not decreased.

Evidence of timeliness can be found in the British Open (it was nowhere near the top ten the week before it teed off); Big Brother and Survivor, both immensely popular TV shows at the time; and The X-Men, the latest movie blockbuster. Prominence is seen in Britney Spears and WWF, both popular for no reason other than their immensely successful promotion campaigns. Human interest is manifest in Big Brother and Survivor: "reality TV", preying on the dramas of genuine(?) human interaction instead of fiction. Finally, novelty is noticeable in all of the above, especially Pokemon and Dragonball.

But what of the other news values: proximity, impact and conflict? Where is the public interest in those features of human existence manifested on the Internet? Conflict is, arguably, evident in WWF, the British Open golf and Survivor, though all of these are framed more as entertainment than a manifest example of a clash of values. None of them constitute what is meant by conflict.

Where is the impact? None of these things determines any viewer’s life circumstances. Where is the proximity? And could we please have some genuine conflict?

I believe that the absence of these features from the above list reflects the two most fundamental features of the Internet revolution; a subtle but profound shift in the nature of journalistic endeavour that has confounded purveyors of Internet news content with traditional ‘content for sale’ business models.

The first and most obvious is that the people who are genuinely interested in those features of news are the people who don’t use search engines to get what they want. The Internet is better suited to separate and classify content by topic than any other publication. People with any particular interest can find the site(s) to satisfy their need quickly, and will use the same source(s) as long as their needs are met. Internet users do not need to consume an entire publication in the hope of finding the bit that caters to their particular interest.

This means that consumers will not pay for the unnecessary news provided when an offline news service’s other content is just plastered onto a website. It’s too hard to wade through the guff that the editors think is important to get to the really interesting bits – it’s easier to buy the paper and read it later. At least with a newspaper (even a tabloid) you can scan five or six stories per page without putting your beer/wine/coffee/orange juice down. And you can do it exactly the same at the beach or in the office.

It also means that new users will try to find the content in the most obvious place first – owning a URL that reflects the topic is a big bonus but not everything. Amazon.com’s popularity reminds us that a good branding strategy can overcome this problem – but a brand that doesn’t have credibility, reliabilty, usability and authority is in a lot of trouble. People type in a URL with a purpose in mind and will not return to one that doesn’t satisfy that purpose. Internet-browsing readers can’t be attracted by headlines on rival URLs while the reader waits for a bus.