Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509090002
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GENEVA OVERHOLSER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Increasingly, though, it's the newspaper's own information going onto that screen. And the entry of more and more newspaper companies into cyberspace is a promising development for users, readers and journalists alike.
First, though, to the notion that computers will turn newspapers into dinosaurs. Truth to tell, the old reliable sheet has plenty going for it. Readers are comfortable with it. It travels. It's easy to find things in. And who wants to read a long story in little glowing letters on a screen, anyway?
No, newspapers will be around a good long while. But so will the on-line world. And someone is going to provide lots of information for it. Why are the newspaper people who consider entry into that world a mistake - aiding and abetting the enemy - so ready to turn all that promising terrain over to someone else? They are so eminently well-suited to be the information providers themselves.
Here it is, the information age. Newspapers are incomparable troves of information. Computers provide all kinds of new delivery possibilities. They perform the functions not of journalism, but of production and circulation. The newspaper that sees itself first and foremost as an information source will understand how wonderfully well-equipped it is to star in this new world.
The Washington Post Co. seems to feel that way. I spent time recently at Digital Ink, the new on-line network at The Post. This initiative speaks of the company's confidence in additional applications of the newspaper's fund of information.
Let's say the lead story in a given day's paper compels you. Chances are you could turn to Digital Ink and find a history and background of the story. You could read any editorials or comment that have been published about it. If you were moved by what was happening, you could post your own view on it and find the questions and comments of other readers, too.
Newspaper-lovers can take heart that such extensions of the reach and mission of a paper strengthen the whole operation. They can take heart even more from the fact that newspapers are likely to bring, along with their content, their rules.
People already feel overwhelmed by the amount of information available. With the burgeoning of activity in cyberspace, they're going to feel more and more so. It will become increasingly difficult, and increasingly important, to know which information is reliable.
Perhaps you're disgruntled at newspapers, finding their behavior far from perfect. Even so, the imperfect pursuit of sound principles beats the absence of principles. Right now cyberspace is a wide-open, brawling, practically rule-free world. Newspaper suppliers who bring their rules with them are like the first sheriffs in the old Wild West.
Where a good newspaper attempts to apply its guidelines, you'll be able to tell what is a news release and what is not. You'll know whether a restaurant review was written by a journalist or by the restaurant owner, because advertising will be clearly marked. Not that it's easy to translate traditions into rules in this complex new world. Let's say a restaurant buys an ad in the review section. Is the ad linked to the review? Does the reader then suspect that he or she will find reviews only for those restaurants that advertised - rendering the service less useful? And what if the review is negative? Is it required that the ad be linked to it?
What about libel? If the newspaper's on-line service includes live, free-wheeling conversations among users, is the company responsible for unfairness and misrepresentation?
The rules are only now being written. Users of these services will find them far more useful if well-established principles are brought to bear on the process.
Meanwhile, anyone unsettled by venerable journalism's sticking its toe into the undignified cyberwaters should ponder this: How might the content - and the rules - develop without it?
Geneva Overholser is ombudsman of The Washington Post.
- The Washington Post
by CNB