Online Media 

The PEJ report concludes that the Internet has definitely arrived as 
"a major source of news in America." But the big challenge, still 
largely unmet, lies in harnessing its growth and potential to an 
economic model or models that will pay for it to reach its potential. 

"The Web is the only part of the mainstream news business that 
generally is seeing audiences grow, especially among the young," the 
PEJ report authors write, but "Some of the biggest news Web sites 
are not yet breaking even." 

Will the success of Web news kill older media like newspapers and 
TV? "Less clear," say the report authors. Those media can't blame 
all their problems on the Web. What's going on is a lot more complex 
-- a "convergence" that is blurring the lines between different media. 

Writers can take heart from PEJ's finding (which surprised even PEJ) 
that the Web as a medium has so far remained dominated by text. 

"What is most intriguing is the evidence that television rather than 
print is suffering most," PEJ concludes. "This is surprising because, 
at this point, the Web is still largely a text-based medium. 

One might have thought that print media would thus be hurt by the 
greater convenience that the Web offers, in much the same way that 
cable seems to have eroded the appeal of network television. This is 
not the case." 

Economics aside, "The promise of Internet news is its availability, 
immediacy, interactivity and unlimited space," PEJ notes. The 150 
million Americans who go online can get most Internet news for free, 
and they can get the story they want right away. Internet news is 
updated almost instantaneously -- as fast as, or faster than, any 
other medium except truly live TV or radio. Web technologies allow 
audiences to customize and react to the content they are getting so 
quickly and extensively that they essentially shape the content 
while it is being produced. And hyperlinks allow reporters and 
publishers to make long texts part of their reports without 
interrupting narrative flow or boring uninterested readers. 

"Which of these characteristics are really being taken advantage 
of?" the PEJ authors ask, and they offer statistics to show that 
even many of the big Web news sites make only limited use of video, 
audio, photos, graphics, archives, chat, and audience feedback. 

Some more good news for writers and photographers: "Internet 
journalism is still largely material from old media rather than 
something original." 

The PEJ report deals largely with the struggle of the Web news big 
dogs (AOL, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, and Yahoo) to make 
a buck from the new media. The report does not examine the issue of 
how writers -- pardon us, "content providers" -- are to be paid 
fairly or otherwise compensated when their stories are "re-purposed" 
for the Web.