2002: Conference explored future of internet news

A goal of the conference, as laid out in a joint NewsLab-Institute release, was to examine “how 360 degree video, 3-D imaging, immersive or interactive audio can lead to, or detract from, greater understanding of the news story.” Participants listened to expert speakers on various technologies and concluded possible uses for each technology in sessions held Friday and Saturday. The idea was to get the participants to “help lead the thinking in the industry about adapting some of these new media techniques,” stated the release.

Attendees thought of a variety of possible applications for the new technology. 360-degree images and video could take viewers to the scene of news events to provide context and give added information. Interactive audio could let users hear oral history from their community. Advanced web cams could be used for live reporting and set up by a reporter anywhere internet access is possible. 3-D photography could show viewers the scene of news to help them better understand it, such as a picture of the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Different roles may form as newsgathering changes.

Merrill Brown, the then-recently departed editor-in-chief of MSNBC.com, spoke in the keynote address. “We've only tiptoed down the road of television-internet convergence. We've only begun to measure the impact of internet news in a 24-hour global news culture,” Brown stated. He likened the current incarnation of the Internet to the early days of television. “To be sure, it is not 1947 any longer, but it is 1952 and we've got a long, long way to go,” he said.

Despite the fact that the growth of Internet use and the use of news sites on the web has slowed, Brown says there is a great deal of positive data on which to focus, including the fact that daily circulation at MSNBC.com, at some four million users per day, is double the size of any newspaper in the United States, and that 58 million people at work use the web more than TV. He also noted that a general consensus among the advertising community that internet advertising is growing and will continue to grow is often overlooked. But most importantly, Brown said that internet news is a new market for news that wasn’t around only a decade ago, cultivating an “entirely new and unappreciated audience.”

“What we do today simply did not exist,” he told the assembled audience. “We work in the most successful new medium ever created and we must not forget it.”

Brown noted that the medium has come far in its short history, moving from what he calls the first generation of internet news – repurposed headlines and bios of “overpaid network talent” (this comment generated quite a laugh among attendees) – to the second generation, where webcasts and other new and original content began to be produced on station websites, with top TV sites doing more to “extend the storytelling experience.” He said we were entering the third generation of internet news, where “improved interactive applications” will “engage consumers in new ways.”

As more users begin viewing the internet over high-speed and broadband connections, video content on news sites is expected to take on an increasing importance. Brown sees a greater degree of live and custom content being streamed in the future, with sites like MSNBC.com “in short becoming video distribution portals.” Streaming video is already taking on increased importance at websites like that of KSTP-TV in Minneapolis. Users of KSTP.com can select video stories from the station’s newscast by checking boxes next to story headlines and create their own “5Cast.” Story text is also available.

KSTP.com is promoting high-speed cable modem connections from the local cable companies, AT&T and Time Warner Cable, as a way to get “instant access” to 5Cast. Other stations have similar features, including KENS in San Antonio. At the station website, MySanAntonio.com/kens, news is centered around the “KENS 5 Video on Demand” service, which provides a similar checklist of video stories available for viewing.

For some local station websites, the FeedRoom service has been an alternative to a main focus on video stories. “The FeedRoom is where television and the internet converge,” announces the company website. “Just like TV – only better. The best news and information when you want it.”

Stations supplement text coverage on their sites with their video stories that come up in a co-branded FeedRoom window from which users can access other video clips from the station and connect to coverage from other FeedRoom affiliates. All NBC owned-and-operated station websites as well as five major market Tribune stations and two major market Journal Broadcast Group stations use FeedRoom.

Improvements in internet news are not only about finding a new outlet for news content and better informing viewers, however, according to Brown. He says it is about “reinvigorating the entire news business with better information and technology.” The fact that his vision is not shared by the “myopic” view of executives doesn’t faze Brown, who encouraged fellow web journalists and their colleagues to speak out in support of financial and journalistic commitment to web news. “All of us need to be champions in ways that are not necessarily how journalists normally behave,” he said.

During the question-and-answer session following Brown’s address, Dorian Benkoid of ABCNews.com wondered how much support can be generated for web journalism when most internet news organizations are not generating a profit. “Patience is required by both us and our management,” Brown said. He notes that high profit expectations are not unique to web news, but are a feature of the entire business right now, including the financial demands on television newscasts. Brown points out that both CNN and Sports Illustrated took some fifteen years to generate a profit, with USA Today needing twenty years to make money.

Beth Pearlman of Internet Broadcasting Systems (IBS), the company that manages a number of local station websites, thinks that there are “ways [executives] can and do cut back so drastically that [Internet news] has become a shell of what it ought to be.”