From ink to links: Jumping the chasm

A journalism professor and InfoWorld's editor argue the future of new media.

by J.T. Long, Secretary, San Francisco chapter

Lured by good food, networking opportunities and a sexy Internet topic, 25 busy editors took time out of their week for the inaugural meeting of the San Francisco chapter of the American Society of Business Publication Editors.

Joining the group on Oct. 22 at MacArthur Park Restaurant on Front Street in San Francisco were Mike Vizard, editor of InfoWorld, who is responsible for print and InfoWorld.com and Paul Grabowicz, new media program coordinator at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley and former investigative reporter for the Oakland Tribune.

While at first glance it would seem that the two forward-thinking media types would be in agreement on most issues, the two actually had very different visions for the future of new media and how the World Wide Web will affect traditional print journalism.

"In the next five to10 years, print news will be a marketing brochure for on-line publications and in 20 to 30 years, there will be no papers," Grabowicz predicted.

He based this bold view on the fact that 60 percent of the New York Times’ on-line readership doesn’t read the print version. And, he pointed out that the negatives of on-line news, such as portability, screen resolution, packaging and speed, would be solved in the next decade with technology that is already in existence.

"When the Internet is convenient and news can be had instantaneously at no cost, the advantages of interactivity will make the difference," Grabowicz said.

However, Vizard disagreed. In his opinion, the Web, just like television and radio, is simply a new channel for distributing information. "It’s not going to cancel out the other in my lifetime."

He conceded that the print product will probably not be like what we have today. Instead, it will be personalized, downloadable to a printer and then the same piece of paper will be whited out and reused the next day.

Not only will the delivery system change, Grabowicz predicted, writing styles will have to evolve as well. "Use data searches as a way to catch people and then lead them to the stories," he suggested.

Most people go on-line looking for statistics and then get drawn into the stories. He suggested making the most of that by thinking of the data graphics first, rather than as an afterthought.

"My interest in the Internet started when, as an investigative reporter, I started using programs to manipulate data and I saw that something was going on. There are no new ideas in newspapers," he added. "It’s just the same old failed ideas cycling back. The Internet is a dramatically different culture because it is interactive. At newspapers, the only interactivity is the letters to the editor. With the Internet, you can get readers involved before publication." Some newspapers are already posting their daily budget on the Internet each morning to get feedback at the early stages.

Again, Vizard disagreed. "Writing for the Web is not fundamentally different than what reporters are already doing. In print, we are constantly making decisions about text and graphics; on the Web, you simply add audio and video to the mix. It’s the same decision making skills we already use," he said.

Vizard also objected to the demands he has heard that writers not tell "what happened, but what it means." His response to the charge that the technology press is selling opinion was, "That’s scary because we don’t want reporters analyzing. There are three sides to every story and the need for objectivity will not change."

"You can avoid objectivity and still be fair," Grabowicz said. "The voice of reporters should come through. Sports is already subjective and it is much more popular than cold news stories. The old AP Style is asinine."

When the dessert had been cleared, the only agreement was that editors will have to be on their toes to keep publications current in the coming years.

See this related story from our archives:

Future news!
What will our jobs be like a few years from now? The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's News in the Future project has some answers.

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