Newspapers: Beginning To Get The Net
It's been a painful education, but it appears newspapers are finally recognizing that the future of news is on the Web. While the Internet has crushed newspapers' popularity, earnings and capital evaluations, forward thinking dailies are embracing the Web and its myriad opportunities.
In a speech to hundreds of journalists, Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Shea announced a daring plan to shift more emphasis to online initiatives. For starters, the newspaper will no longer maintain separate newsrooms for its print and electronic outlets. There'll also be changes (presumably improvements) to online content, but perhaps the most important announcement was the revelation that the newspaper's online Web site would become the paper's "primary vehicle for breaking news 24 hours a day."
What took so long?
I guess the fact that the parent company is considering dumping the Times may have awakened some stody curmudgeons within its staid hallways, but I doubt it.
Either way, it's great to see newspapers taking a greater interest, and making bigger commitments, to the Web. But I'll only consider newspapers as having arrived when I can receive daily columns from The San Francisco Chronicle's Scott Ostler, the Miami Herald's Carl Hiassen and The Journal News' Ian O'Connor daily in my e-mail inbox. To the Miami Herald's credit, you can add Hiassen's XML feed to your favorite feed reader, but some of us still use e-mail.
In a speech to hundreds of journalists, Los Angeles Times Editor James O'Shea announced a daring plan to shift more emphasis to online initiatives. For starters, the newspaper will no longer maintain separate newsrooms for its print and electronic outlets. There'll also be changes (presumably improvements) to online content, but perhaps the most important announcement was the revelation that the newspaper's online Web site would become the paper's "primary vehicle for breaking news 24 hours a day."
What took so long?
I guess the fact that the parent company is considering dumping the Times may have awakened some stody curmudgeons within its staid hallways, but I doubt it.
Either way, it's great to see newspapers taking a greater interest, and making bigger commitments, to the Web. But I'll only consider newspapers as having arrived when I can receive daily columns from The San Francisco Chronicle's Scott Ostler, the Miami Herald's Carl Hiassen and The Journal News' Ian O'Connor daily in my e-mail inbox. To the Miami Herald's credit, you can add Hiassen's XML feed to your favorite feed reader, but some of us still use e-mail.
Labels: newspapers internet
posted by Erik Eckel at 8:38 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home