Week 11: Writing for the web

8/10/2019 Week 11: Writing for the web

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COMM-125 Introduction to Journalism

Section 1- Language of instruction English

Wednesdays 15:00-18:00

Venue: NEWTON Amphitheatre

Lecture no. 11

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Up to now we have written and told the

news in text (print), using the voice

(radio), and audio visually (TV).

Today we are going to tell it

interactively.

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The news of the capture of Saddam

Hussein, could not have come at a

worse time for the Americannewspapers.

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The deposed Iraqi strongman, the

subject of an intense manhunt for

months, had been pulled of a "spiderhole" by American troops near his

home town of Tikrit on Saturday

evening, December 13, 2003.

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Word of his capture had remained a

secret for about 12 hours while his

identity had been confirmed.

But by 5:00a.m. (eastern time) Sunday,

the news had begun to spread.

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There were by then leaks from insiders

to the media.

Television and the web started

delivering to their audiences what

information they had.

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At the same time newspapers were

landing on doorsteps and on sale on

newsracks and kiosks across the

country.

Sunday is the biggest day of the week

for them.

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It is their largest circulation day.

It is the day they showcase their best

reporting, analyses, opinion articles,

design, photography and even gifts

and offers.

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Yet, no major newspaper in the US

carried out a word about the capture of

the ex-Iraqi leader that Sundaymorning.

It was too late.

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What most newspapers did however,

responding to the story, was a turn

away from their print products towardstheir electronic ones, i.e. their

websites.

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Hussein's capture represents just

another instance in which newspapers

have the chance to compete in theworld of breaking news, by acting

immediately, or with immediacy.

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That chance did not exist before the

advent of the Internet and the World

Wide Web.

In today's world, however, the web

"threatens" to change just everything in

journalism.

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The difference of the web

Internet, or Online journalism is

journalism.

It's about ideas, itsabout observation,

it's about what you are actually going

to put on the page.

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What makes a good story, makes a

good story online.

Because the values and sources arethe same.

So, the essence of the web is news

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but the web is not, at least literally, a

newspaper on a computer screen.

or a broadcast station that you can pick

up through a browser.

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It is different from

traditional/conventional media in some

significant and profound ways that weare going to examine.

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Capacity

A newspaper might be confined to

writing 500 or 600 words for a story. A

photojournalist might spend all daycovering an event and expect to have

only one, maximum two of his/her

pictures in print.

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At a broadcast station, a reporter would

have only 40 seconds to tell a story,

and a five minute statement from anews source would have to be reduced

to a five-second sound bite.

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All of these journalists experience the

two great frustrations (limitations at the

end of the day) of professionaljournalism: the lack of time and space.

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The web greatly mitigates, if not

entirely eliminates, these limitations. A

reporter can take as many words or asmuch time necessary to tell the story.

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He/she can post all the pictures taken

from an event, despite some screen

width limitations (see web large640X480px, or small 448X336px

sizes).

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With the web news reporters can

include in their stories the full text of

speeches, biographical information ontheir sources, maps, charts, graphics,

photos, audio and video (video framing

is another limitation related to screen

width).

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To be sure, there are some other

limitations.

Servers for example that host websitesand store information, do have a finite

capacity, but generally it takes a long

time before those limits are reached.

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More practically, the limitations of the

web have to do with the

machine/medium (e.g. cell phonedevice, tablet, laptop, desktop, PC,

Mac etc.) and browser that visitors are

using.

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They also have to do with the time

required for loading and downloading,

the time and effort the reporter wantsto spend (and the news organization is

willing to support) in gathering the

information.

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There are also virus limitations and

other similar obstacles.

But still the web offers morepossibilities for presenting more

information in more ways than either

print or broadcasting.

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Flexibility

The web can handle a wide variety of

forms: text, pictures, audio, video,

graphics, and more, thanks to digitalconvergence or mediamorphosis, after

the introduction of web 2.0 and the

standardization of Internet Protocols

(IPs).

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In this regard , it is far more flexible

than print of broadcast.

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The relative newness of the web as the

third electronic mass medium means

that many of these formats have notbeen fully explored yet and there is a

great deal of room for imagination and

creativity on the part of the people

entering this field.

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For instance, many news organizations

with substantial websites, regularly

produce photo galleries that thepaper's photographers have taken,

from different parts of the country and

from across the globe.

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On many of these galleries, not only

can visitors see the pictures and read

the cutline text, but also can save, andshare them or even hear an audio of

the photographer talking about his or

her work.

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The audio picture gallery is a new form

of presenting information that the web

has spawned.

There are many other forms waiting to

be created and developed by

imaginative and creative journalists.

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Immediacy

The web can deliver information

immediately, often as events are

unfolding. Broadcasting, particularlytelevision, can do the same thing and

with great impact, as many of us

experienced on September 11, 2001.

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But the web's qualities offer an

immediacy that broadcasting cannot

match in the following four importantways:

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Immediacy with Variety: Most major

breaking news events are multiface.

They involve a variety of people,

places and activities.

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The September 11 example is one

such dramatic case in point, where we

had the hit and subsequent collapse of

the Twin Towers in New York, thecrashing of a plane into the Pentagon,

while the government was shutting

down air traffic across the country.

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Meanwhile, an a local basis school

systems and government offices were

deciding whether or not to stay open.

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A mother wondering if she should pick

up her child from school earlier that

day would probably not have found

that information on TV.

So she could log in to websites which

did that too.

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In a less dramatic vein, let's say you

want to know the score of a sporting

event.

How likely are you to find that out

immediately when you turn on the

television or radio?

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Only luck or coincidence could help

you and to some smaller extent the

teletext.

You can however find this information

far more quickly on a sport oriented

website.

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Immediacy with Expansion:As noted

earlier, the web has a huge capacity to

hold and display information.

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So while television generally only

shows and tells us one thing at a time,

which may or may not be what we are

interested in or what we want to know,the web can often satisfy our need for

information more immediately, in an

expanding manner.

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It can provide a variety of information

that users can select.

In the case for instance of any majordisaster story, one may want the

names of victims, especially the

relatives;

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another may want background

information about the disaster; another

may want the latest developments; and

so on.

A good news website can provide all of

these things so that readers can

choose.

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Immediacy with Depth: Depth is

closely akin to capacity, but what we

are really talking about here is quality.

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Breaking information can be posted

immediately on the website, but to get

it ready, it must undergo at leastminimal editing.

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The broadcasts of a breaking news

event, though often done by people

who are though roughly professional,have no buffer between their

creation and their distribution.

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Because the web is essentially a word

medium, web journalists have some

opportunity to edit, or let others look at

their work, before it is disseminated.

Hence there is more depth on the

web between creation and

distribution, even in breaking news.

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Immediacy with Context: Finally the

web can offer immediacy with context,

something broadcasters find difficult toprovide with their breaking news

stories.

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The limitations of television to provide

context are evident in the live coverage

of many events. Take golf matches forexample.

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The camera and announcers may

concentrate on a single player or a

single shot while a graphic showing theleader board or a smaller screen

window showing another player or shot

overlay part of the screen.

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Still, those two or three things may not

tell the whole story of the match,

appearing out of the context, becauseother important actions may be

occurring in different parts of the

course.

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Watching a golf match on television, or

the heptathlon or decathlon during the

Olympic Games, is undoubtedlydramatic for those interested in the

sport, but the difficulty in giving a

complete picture before the end, is

there.

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The web on the other hand has the

power to summarize and lively update,

while adding information in variousparts of the coverage.

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Permanence: Although the web can

seem almost as ethereal as

broadcasting, actually it is the mostpermanent medium because it does

not deteriorate. Nothing need be lost.

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Properly archived and maintained, data

on the web in its electronic form can

exist far beyond any tangible mediumwe now have.

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The permanence is an often

overlooked quality of the web, but it is

one that gives the medium greatpower.

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It has taken us some time to recognize

the permanence of the web and to put

it to good use.

Websites have been abandoned,

addresses have changed, and data

have been overwritten without being

properly saved.

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Much that has been created during the

first decade of the web has been lost,

but those losses are not due to a

failure of the medium.

Rather, they are failures of the

operators.

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This permanence leads to two other

qualities of the web that render it so

powerful:

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Duplication: Because the web is such

an open medium and because the

technology that creates a website isshared, any part of a website can be

duplicated and stored in a different

location from where it originated.

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Duplication renders information on the

web safe because it can be stored in

various places.

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Retrievability: This quality also

renders the web powerful, particularly

in the area of web journalism.

A simple example of this characteristic

is the Cypriot haircut (levy, bail-

out/bail-in) that is though roughly

covered by the local press.

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Months later, someone is arrested and

accused and months after the trial

begins.

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A reporter covering the trial may be

new to the organization, but he or she

can easily retrieve what has beenwritten before to become informed

about the background of the story.

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Stories about the trial will probably

have at least a paragraph or two to

background material, but they can alsocontain links to earlier stories that will

allow readers to gain insight into the

case.

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Retrieving previous stories for the

reader is just one way that a single

article can be shown to be part of acontinuing story over days, months and

years.

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Interactivity

Although all of the qualities of the web

listed previously (capacity, flexibility,

immediacy, and permanence) have thepotential of changing journalism as it is

practiced on the web, those qualities

pale against the potential the web has

for interactivity.

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This quality portends a totally new

relationship between journalists and

readers/viewers, who are no longerpassive consumers, but proactive ones

(i.e. prosumers), who are no longer

pathetic receivers, but users.

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This new relationship could mean a

new form of journalism.

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All news media are interactive, to some

extent of course.

Television viewers and radio listeners

must turn their sets on to select

channels.

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Remote controls allow them to switch

channels (do zapping) at will.

There are different levels of

interactivity: one way, local, full, linear,

non-linear

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Beyond that, these media offer little

opportunities to interact, giving

feedback or comments while programsare being broadcast.

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For example not all shows are reality,

allowing you to intervene, either via

phone, or via messaging through socialnetworks.

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Newspapers and magazines are also

interactive, in the sense that readers

can choose what parts to read orignore.

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Headlines, refers (or reefers - text that

directs readers to another page/part of

the paper), layouts, and sectioning,help readers make such choices.

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But print media offer no channel

through which readers can immediately

respond or interact with the journalistswho have produced the publication.

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Web journalism offers the same

choices that print media offer, only

more of them.

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Whereas the choices in newspapers

are pages and headlines, the choices

on the web can be built into the articlesand web pages with hyperlinks (read

more, read further etc.).

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These allow readers to veer off within a

story to information that is most

interesting or relevant to them.

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An array of choices gives readers more

control over what they see and read,

and it heightens the nonlinearity of theweb itself.

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Where the web is really different,

however, is with the immediate

feedback channel that it offers to usersand journalists alike.

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News websites use techniques for

channeling this feedback, such as

instant polls, email, forums, discussiongroups, comments, and online chats

with reporters, even editors, and

sources.

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These channels can be immediate and

active, and as web journalism

develops, they will become anincreasingly important part of the

journalist's milieu, further enhancing

the interactivity.

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Even when comments are closed in

some publications or posts, the user

can still share the story, commentingwith a cutline text, give it a new

headline, tag the website, or do all

these.

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This new relationship will haveprofound effects on the way journalists

gather information and make

decisions.

Readers are likely to become sources

of information and lead journalists to

new inquiries and stories.

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They could provide valuableperspective to journalists who are new

to a story or not part of the community

they cover (two of the major criticisms

of journalists today), offering points of

view that journalists would not normally

hear in talking with "official" sources

about their stories.

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The public journalism movement (alsoknown as civic, citizen, participatory,

democratic, guerilla or street), based

upon citizens playing an active role in

the process of collecting, judging,

deciding and disseminating news could

be taken to a new level with the web.

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Already lay people, through user-generated-content in any form, such as

blogs, wikis, discussion forums, posts,

chats, tweets, podcasting, pins, digital

images, video, audio files, have

become producers and journalists

themselves.

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So why not also participate in the

professional news production process

too?

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The other side of interactivity is thatwhile the audience can reach toward

the news organization, the news

organization can find out more about

the audience.

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An organization may ask or require

that users register to see its site,

gaining valuable data on who is lookingat any site.

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But the technology of the web allowsthose who run websites to be less

intrusive in finding out information

about their visitors.

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Data can be gathered on where hits

are coming from, both from individual

computer IPs and the URLsimmediately before the hit.

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The website can also track a user's

progress through the site even to the

point of seeing how long the userspends looking at a particular page

and even the resolution of the screen

you are using.

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Developing email lists (sending

newsletters for example) and forums

are other ways of gathering informationabout users.

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With these and other methods, it isvery easy for an organization to see

what the most popular parts (and least

popular ones) of a website are and to

make editorial and advertising rate

decisions accordingly.

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Few news organizations have gonethat far yet, but they inevitably will do

so.

Such data will allow news

organizations to develop content to

better serve general and specialized

audiences.

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These characteristics: capacity,

flexibility, immediacy, permanence,

and interactivity, set the web apart fromtraditional media.

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The news website

News websites of the early 21stcentury

represent a hybrid. They contain the

content of media that are from acentury (radio and television) to four

centuries (newspaper) years old,

presented with a technology that is still

in its first generation.

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Where did news websites come from?What are they now? What are they

likely to be in both the near and the

distinct future?

None of these questions is easily

answered, and maybe none is

ultimately that important as the web

develops and changes.

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But the news website, whatever it was,

is and will be, is the major form of

practice of web journalism and will befor the foreseeable future.

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The web's capacity, flexibility,immediacy, permanence, and

interactivity have not been fully

explored or exploited by any news

organization.

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Newspapers, news magazines, radioand television stations, whose history

and investments have been in other

products, have been and still are timid

in approaching the web.

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Yet, the strength of their acceptance bythe public as credible sources of news

and their financial commitment to the

production of news make them the first

and foremost players in this new field

of web journalism.

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A news website is a site that is devotedto delivering timely news and

information to its audience. Those

producing the site observe the

traditional customs and practices of

journalism in gathering, writing, and

presenting the news.

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A news website is a means for a news

organization to display and distribute

its content. That content is directed atan audience that is defined either by

interest or geography.

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A news organization's website can use

one of the following four methods of

populating the site with content.

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Shovelware

This term, refers to the practice of

simply shifting the content produced bythe organization for another medium

(newspaper, radio, or television) to the

website with little or no change.

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What you see in the newspaper or

hear on the television is what goes on

the website and this is the reason whythe term is often used in a defaming

way by people interested in web

development.

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Used for a variety of reasons:

First and foremost, it's cheap and easy.

The news stories and pictures arealready there, having been produced

for the traditional medium, and they

can be easily transferred to the

website.

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Many newspapers have found softwarethat will allow them to do this almost

seamlessly from their editing systems.

Consequently, it takes little time and

effort (and little extra money) to get

content onto the web.

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Another reason for shovelware is that it

works.

News stories written in an inverted

pyramid form are appropriate for the

web.

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They give the most important orinteresting information first and then

present information in descending

order of importance.

Ideally, they are written concisely and

precisely, all qualities that good writing

for the web demands.

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News organizations that shovel their

print content onto their website come

away with a well-populated site at littleor no extra cost.

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They have extended their brand to theweb, they have reached people who

might not be subscribers, and they

have created new advertising

opportunities.

The information comes in a form

readers are used to seeing.

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Updating: moderate vs. aggressive

Most news organizations know by now

the immediacy function of the web.

They also know that a growing number

of their audience turn to the web when

breaking news occurs or when that

kind of information is anticipated.

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For instance, if a press conference iscalled for 14:00, upon a short notice,

even if a TV or radio station appears

there to cover it, they will probably not

be able to include it in their next news

bulletin (17:00 or 18:00 for the former

and 15:00 for the latter) and they will

definitely not cover it live (too costly).

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But a significant number of people whoare interested want to know what was

announced at the conference.

The logical alternative is the news

website, which can be updated as

soon as the information is known.

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The second type of site managementemploys staff members who post new

items regularly, throughout the day.

This kind of updating begins with the

shovelware that the organization has

produced for its other product (print or

broadcast).

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The website staff will look at thesestories and see which ones might

involve breaking news.

For instance, a newspaper might run a

previous story in the morning edition

about a meeting of the city council

scheduled for that day.

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The council, the story says, is set tovote on a proposed increase in

professional taxes. The website staff

will make arrangements with the

reporter covering the meeting to find

out how the council voted, soon after it

happens, updating the story

accordingly.

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This process of rewriting an existing

story, or rewriting the top paragraphs

of a story with new information,sometimes take on the old wire service

term of a writethru.

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The website staff may also look forways to enhance content that does not

need to be updated.

For instance, a newspaper may have

room to run just one picture along with

a story.

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The capacity of the website can

accommodate many more than that,

and the staff may want to set up a

photo gallery with other good shots

that were not used.

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Likewise, a television reporter may

have audio or video related to a story

that could not be included in the

regular newscast but may be suitable

for the website.

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Radio stations operating a CMSwebsite, fill it with news stories based

on information collected during their

morning, mostly informative, prime time

zone, through the many telephone

interviews with government and other

officials, politicians or athletes.

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News organizations that subscribe tonews services may build in a feed for

those services to the site.

As stories are produced and sent by

the wire service, they automatically

appear on the site.

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A new story can show up every few

minutes, and on the splash page of the

site, headline links to these stories will

be constantly changed.

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Having the site change every fewminutes or even few hours is one of the

hallmarks of aggressive updating.

Those who work with the web believe

that a site should continually change

and present new information.

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Web CMS systems allow editors tomark more than one story (four and

more) or picture that should be placed

at the top of the opening page or

section page, or home page.

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These items, called feature stories (notnecessarily feature articles), will then

"rotate"; that is, change positions on

the page as is refreshed.

Rotation gives the site the appearance

of having new information all the time.

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Original content

Utilizing the aggressive updating

philosophy, most news organizationstoday have gone a step beyond: the

developing of original content to their

websites, and not just shovelwaring.

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These organizations have developed

staffs who are devoted to using the

website for original reporting and

interviewing.

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Original content sites are likely to have

their own advertising staffs in addition

to their editorial staffs.

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Advertising managers andsalespersons are not only involved in

selling ads for the site, but they also

track site hits (the site web stats) and

try to keep with the demographics ofsite users.

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To the extent that the leadership of thenews organization demands it, these

web ad staffs work with the advertising

staffs for the traditional media to

enhance the sales for both.

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Owned and operatedWho owns a news website? As we

alluded to in the previous section, most

news websites are owned by traditional

news media companies, such as

newspapers, television stations, radio

stations and news magazines.

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These sites not only show the content,but they also reflect the structure,

appearance, and even values of the

news organization itself.

In short, they are an extension of the

brand of the news organization.

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A significant number of news websites

however, do not necessarily come from

established news organizations but

spring from the minds and efforts of

individuals or small groups.

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They are produced for various reasonsand with a variety of approaches (less

traditional, more creative and

innovative), but all with the assumption

that on the web, initially, my personalweb log (in short blog), or page can

look as big as the New York Times.

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In fact, these owners are usually non-news organizations, demonstrating the

nature and power of the web and the

expectations that people have for

finding new information.

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Thus the web has made them intoalternative news organizations,

whether or not that was their original

intention.

Documents

Week 11: Writing for the web