What's Wrong with Online News (and how to fix it)
I've been thinking a lot about online news lately. The anniversary of Sept. 11 and also working on a newspaper Web site has recently inspired some deep analysis of the nature of online news. Is it better than a newspaper or television broadcast? How is it different? What can online news offer that the other two major media outlets cannot offer?

One thing is certain, online news has at least the capability of pretty much combining the immediacy, urgency and visual imagery of television while providing the permanency and depth of written word provided by a newspaper (or magazine). This is pretty powerful in and of itself. Television is extremely powerful but once the sound byte or image is gone then it exists only in your memory or until they show it again. On the Web you can continually re-examine it because it's THERE.

So, online news provides a sort of hybrid by combining television and print. So, it makes news more efficient for both those publishing the news and those consuming the news. This is a good thing for news. In this manner online news succeeds. My question is:

IS THAT IT?

True Interactivity?
Is that the only real benefit or advantage of online news? Ok, so we can mention "interactivity" but what does that really mean in the majority of online news sites? It means adding a poll, enabling comments at the end of a story or creating some sort of forum for people to get together and discuss just about anything. There are chats too but these are real time and are only really "valuable" when a guest is participating. Otherwise there is nothing to differentiate an online news chat room from one on Yahoo.

Upon closely examining these methods of interactivity they all add little actual value and some are not even really taking advantage of the Web technology. Adding comments at the end of a story are pretty much of no news value. The only value is hearing people either agree or disagree with the author or each other. This can be done at a local coffee shop but admittedly not as easily and not on a global scale. However, nothing of real value is being said. Generally no community is developing either because each voice is just a single shot regarding that story. A better method is the forums which encourage community and individual voices and dialogue and people returning again and again and an overall participation from many different people.

However, why is a forum on an online news site any different than a forum on Yahoo? It's not. So again, our online news is pretty much back to where it was, a broadcast/print hybrid.

Polls are unique to the Web (sort of...the immediate, unscientific results anyway) but again, what value do these add? They are really just fun. That's it.

So really, interactivity is not really happening in online news, if anything it's just providing a very visible and common spot for people to gather and interact with each other.

How can online news take full advantage of the Web and offer much more than simply this media hybrid? Well, one of the things the Web encourages the most is community and I believe that online news should foster a community of interactive news. Let me explain.

Currently, when most people speak of community in online news they imagine much of what already exists: forums, chats, comments, etc. However, very little interaction exists between this community and the people reporting the news. So there is no real online news community, just separate communities that happen to exist at the online news domain.

A Real Community
What if reporters began to have their own voice and interaction online with other "news reporters" or simply other voices? This would be an amazing addition to online news. Here's what I mean. Imagine a story about a gang shooting. As part of this story there is a space at the bottom or on the side for the reporter to include additional comments at a later date ala Blog-style. Maybe new information happened that didn't warrant a full story such as the fact that one of the victims' mother had been in a gang shooting years earlier. The reporter could include this in his blog. Also, say this reporter feels a strong sense of urgency about this subject but his opinion would be inappropriate in a news story so he comments in his blog.

Let's put aside the journalistic issues for just a moment and focus on what is happening. This reporter is suddenly given a "voice" and an identity as well as a personality. Blogs encourage this and in fact pretty much are a showcase for individual voices. This allows people to identify with a reporter in ways that they weren't able to before. Think of your favorite blogs and you'll understand that one of the reasons you like them so much is that they have their own "flavor" and style. Now, this format that I'm proposing doesn't even have to be linked from and focused on a particular story, it could simply be Reporter John's Blog and possibly linked from all his stories.

To address any journalistic ethics concerns about impartiality or conflict of interest I'll just say that you should get over it. A good reporter will be able to provide his own voice and opinion on a topic without being blindly one-sided. A good reporter can show both sides of an issue in a blog without sacrificing his own voice and identity. A bad reporter is already bad and everyone who reads him knows that and no amount of blogging will cause any further damage to this reporter's image as a journalist.

My point is that if I meet John Reporter at a bar and he says, "I hate Mr. Biggs who is running for mayor and i wanna take him down" then I can pretty much determine that this guy is a two-bit hack and chances are that this idea is seeping into any stories he writes about Mr. Biggs and no amount of blogging will hurt or help this portrayal of fact. The guy's not impartial in the first place.

Talk-Back, Feedback, Answer-Back, Quarterback
Ok, the next thing you may be wondering is how this is interactive. Well, it's not, YET. The second aspect of my improved online news is to allow individuals to be "NewsTrackers" and report/comment/question any and every story as well as interact ala comment style with the blogs. Imagine a system where people pay $10 a year for the right to be a NewsTracker. This provides some revenue and also provides that all important identification. Someone is far less likely to post random craziness if we know who he is AND that he's paid some actual cash. So now Joe Public has a subscription to be a NewsTracker (or some such name) and at the end of each story he can comment on it, post a public question or add additional news facts/speculation about the story. Also, each of the reporter's blog postings would be open for public comment. Now take a minute and just imagine this happening. Each post would generate an email to the reporter with the posting info. Each post would also instantly (after some word filtering) be posted onto the Web. The reporter could then pick his selection of posts to respond to but more importantly, the nature of the story could begin to evolve.

Imagine a story about a chemical spill. There is a clean up and the news is reported. A few days later Mary posts that her mother is very sick as a result of this. Then that her brother is sick too. Bob, a chemical specialist posts that those symptoms are the same as those related to the chemical spill. The reporter, interested in this exchange does a follow up and let's just say he determines that this is actually NOT related and a completely separate incident. The reporter then posts his findings on the Web and we now have a full exchange.

This process may or may not be possible without the Web, but what is definitely enabled is a publishing of this for all to see. Maybe others have had similar symptoms and read this and understand what is really happening or maybe a church group decides to take meals to this person. Anything is possible. What has happened is a dialogue and that dialogue is directly connected to the news AND that reporter is directly involved.

I know that there are some problems with what I am proposing but I don't think there are any that can't be overcome. I also think that it's extremely important for online news to develop it's own voice and sense of community. That is one of the main things that does not and cannot exist in any other media outlet.

So let's get started.