AlterNet leads a resurgence of progressive news sites

This column appeared July 12, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Will a handful of big corporations control virtually all the news published on the Internet? On some days it certainly appears that way, especially in light of the report last month that four companies control half of all the traffic on the Web.

The prospects for independent content sites seem grim today, what with Salon running low on cash and the zines Feed and Suck closing up shop.

But one voice of grassroots independent journalism has recently begun to thrive. More surprising still, its point of view offers a decidedly left-of-center tilt.

[Read more…] about The wired left awakens

A look at the current state of online news’ credibility

When the Web first blasted onto the public’s radar screen back in 1994, the grand pooh-bahs of journalism wondered what it meant for the profession: Would journalists become obsolete in the new Net order? Would the Internet’s anything-goes dynamic dilute journalism’s core values and standards? What were the rules, and who would write them?

Things have settled down a bit since the Web’s Kitty Hawk days. Now that the high-tech bubble has burst and we’re moving into a period of retrenchment and reassessment, it seems appropriate to pause and consider how the Internet is shaping journalism ethics, and how the Internet ethic is steering journalism in new directions. [Read more…] about How the Net is shaping journalism ethics

Former LA Times newsman takes on role as reader representative at MSNBC

This column appeared July 1, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Online news has its first ombudsman. But to hear him tell it, the view from cyberspace doesn’t differ from terra firma as much as he’d expected.

“The thing that has surprised me most is that the kinds of concerns readers have on the Web track pretty closely with their concerns in traditional media,” says Dan Fisher, who began his job as ombudsman for MSNBC in mid-April.

[Read more…] about Cyberspace’s first ombudsman

But are they undermining free speech on the Net in the process?

This column appeared June 14, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

If you’re like me, you probably feel a twinge of moral ambiguity every time you download a free MP3 file — say, the Vapors’ “Turning Japanese.” (OK, so maybe no harm there.) But what’s an ethically upright citizen of the Web to do when she comes across the curious little copyright icons and permissions notices that have begun to sprout at the bottom of various online publications?

In recent weeks, an increasing number of online news publications have begun featuring links on staff-written stories that grant instant reprint and permission rights — for a price. These online clearance systems permit a user to purchase the rights to republish a news story on another site, or e-mail a formatted copy of the story to groups of recipients, or print out formatted copies for personal or business use.

[Read more…] about News sites get copyright fever

Blogs will supplement, not supplant, traditional forms of media

This column appeared May 31, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site. See Part 1: Blogging as a new form of journalism.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series were included in the anthology We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture (Perseus Publishing, 2002).

Will Weblogs displace established media organizations as a source of news, information and opinion? Not in this lifetime. But they will continue to make inroads as a supplement to traditional news sources.

As Doc Searls, one of the deep thinkers in the blog movement, says: “It’s a matter of ‘and’ logic, not ‘or’ logic. Weblogs will inform old media. They will increasingly be a source of information that traditional media will rely on.”

The first Weblog has generally been ascribed to Dave Winer (interviewed below) in 1997. Blogs began taking off in 1999 with the launch of sites like Blogger, Weblogger and LiveJournal, which made self-publishing painless for the masses. While tens of thousands of blogs have blossomed, mainstream media have only recently shown a glimmer of interest in the form. [Read more…] about Weblogs: A new source of news

ABC news site straddles line with its Pearl Harbor package

This column appeared May 31, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site.

Bisitors to ABCNEWS.com’s “Pearl Harbor” package may be forgiven if they roll their eyes a bit at an increasingly familiar sight in the media universe: synergy. Like a raid of Japanese torpedo bombers, synergy was splattered all over the place this past week as the news site devoted a slick, handsome package to Pearl Harbor, the historical event, and “Pearl Harbor,” the movie from Disney’s Touchstone Pictures.

But when does synergy morph into a conflict of interest? What happens when a news operation begins to internalize some of the traits of an entertainment giant that happens to be its corporate parent? And what happens when history and fiction begin to meld in users’ minds?

Those concerned about the media’s mix of fact and fiction and the ethical entanglements posed by corporate influence over an online news operation had plenty to chew over with last Friday’s premiere of “Pearl Harbor,” the summer blockbuster that pulled in $75.1 million at the holiday weekend box office, ranking No. 2 on the all-time list for four-day openings.

The ABCNEWS.com Pearl Harbor package intertwined historical events with photos from fictitious Hollywood characters who never existed. And Sam Donaldson’s weekly Webcast, which originated from Pearl Harbor this week, also straddled the line between fact and fiction by splicing footage from the movie into a documentary scene. [Read more…] about Synergy and the day of infamy for ABCNews.com

Weblogs offer a vital, creative outlet for alternative voices

This column appeared May 24, 2001, in the Online Journalism Review. Here’s the version on the OJR site. Also see Part 2: Weblogs: A new source of news.

Parts 1 and 2 of this series were included in the anthology We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture (Perseus Publishing, 2002).

Back around 1993, in the Web’s neolithic days, starry-eyed Net denizens waxed poetic about a million Web sites blooming and supplanting the mainstream media as a source of news, information and insight.

Then reality set in and those individual voices became lost in the ether as a million businesses lumbered onto the cyberspace stage, newspapers clumsily grasped at viable online business models, and a handful of giant corporations made the Web safe for snoozing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Web’s irrelevance: the blogging phenomenon, a grassroots movement that may sow the seeds for new forms of journalism, public discourse, interactivity and online community. [Read more…] about Blogging as a form of journalism

New technologies target theft of online intellectual property

This column appeared May 1, 2001, in the Newspaper Association of America’s Digital Edge. Here’s the version on the NAA site.

Spooked by the Napster-led peer-to-peer file-sharing movement, where computer users swap music files and other content in a free-wheeling data bazaar, an increasing number of Web publishers and businesses are taking steps to protect their intellectual property.

During the past several months, newspapers ranging in size from the Albuquerque Journal, to The New York Times have launched online permissions services. An entertainment Web site posted the script of a hot new movie — and installed anti-theft technology to prevent it from being copied to fan sites. A small weekly news site in Arkansas installed watermarking technology to protect news photos from being misappropriated.

[Read more…] about Preventing content sites from being Napsterized