Online Newspapers: News on fast track

Citation

Kanaujia, S. and Srivastava, R. (2003), "Online Newspapers: News on fast track", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 20 No. 10. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2003.23920jaf.003

Online Newspapers: News on fast track

Shiva Kanaujia and Rochna Srivastava

Introduction

For news junkies the Internet is serving as a good platform from where they can gather news from all over the world. As print medium cannot provide the local news from all over the world at the moment, it can be accessed from the Internet instantaneously. One just needs to log on and access the Web sites. Those who are tech-savvy are inclined towards Internet for news rather than newspaper in print medium. One can get a clear picture of events happening in the world from any corner of the globe. This increased access and information sharing helps in promoting relationships between countries and improving the images of a country or region (Mohan, 1999). Our local experience indicates that now to read the news published in our neighboring country Pakistan, we don't need to go to Pakistan to get information from there, instead we just log in. Specifically we use Paknewlist (www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/~npanjawan/PAKnewslist.html) and Paknews.com (www.paknews.com) to provide online news services. Even in this age of the Internet how can Afghanistan be behind in providing news of the country online? We can see some sites related with news of the country (afghannews.net).

Initiation of online news

As the use and services of Internet became wider, newspaper industries initiated online news services. By conducting research on the Internet we learned many things about the wire services, communication and journalism industries. The media groups who own various publications certainly do not limit themselves to the print medium. The Press Association (www.pa.press.net) UK leader in news and sports, ABC news (www.abc.net.au/news/services) BBC News and Reuters (www.online.reuters.com) are providing news services online and have been for nearly a decade. Among these examples, BBC News is considered the Internet arm of the broadcasting (www.news.bbc.co.uk). In 1995, the newspaper industry announced some Web sites and it reflects changes that would continue to occur and are captured by www.newsbytes.com. There are many examples but one that stands out, is that the Tempe, Arizona, USA newspaper has been serving over 18,000 homes since 1991 in the form of Wrangler News (www.wranglernews.com).

Updating online newspapers

Updating newspapers is a very important aspect of online newspaper publishing. There are many different methods to conduct updates using different technologies and products. Some examples include:

• •

  Time bound updating. Some online newspapers update information stories every five-minutes and some do it less frequently. For example, with AfricaNewsNow (www.africanewsnow.com), Africa headlines from a variety of Web-based news sources are updated every five minutes. Some other online newspapers are updated every 15 minutes. The Age (www.theage.com.au), Australia's Melbourne online site is updated seven nights a week and more frequently when big news breaks. At the same time the given story also changes according to developments. On-line news from the Jerusalem Post (www.jpost.com), Israel's leading English language daily newspaper is updated frequently but not on an exact schedule.

• •

  Real time updating. Real-time information appears to be the key to success. The once-a-day publishing cycle is dead. Users demand information now, and if it is not provided to them, they'll find an alternate source that will. Many famous newspapers are updated in real time to remain as the top choice for users seeking the latest information. The electronic version of the US newspaper Financial Times (www.ft.com) has real time updating. The electronic version of the New York Times newspaper (www.nytimes.com) contains topics of general interest, presents condensed news from the printed version and some online exclusive reports by using real time updating. Canada NewsWire (www.newswire.ca), which provides over 60,000 news releases, is also updated in real time. Some online newspapers do not put all the content of the printed newspaper online, instead just the most critical as seen in (reporter-news.com). Some are designed to simplify the presentation, by page feed with masses of updating news sections (www.caithness.org/links/newspaperssetc.html).

• •

  Updating advertisements. Some online facilities are busy in updating Web ads. These Web ads are updated daily (www.theshorthorn.com). Some online newspapers are updating call boxes and adding new ones (www.inewsreports.com).

News correction

Though newspapers are providing online news, yet industry wide content standards are few for correct information and correction of news. Readers often find that online newspaper outlets are not used to running corrections on a regular basis. Newspaper and magazine sites may simply not find enough homepage space to add standing corrections links. Admitting errors and running corrections helps in increasing credibility. There seems to be a need to adopt new standards for publishing corrections on online sites. For instance, The Washington Post runs a "Correction" header at the very top of its "Front Section" story scroll. The link might float throughout the site, landing in the section where the error first appeared. Baltimore's The Sun does it at sunspot.net (www.sunspot.net). In fact, the Baltimore paper site takes an exemplary approach to fixing its mistakes.

To work effectively, the correction process must be a two-step one in which news sites prominently acknowledge mistakes when they are discovered, and then append the original story file with a note updating the material. This is a better approach than simply erasing errors from a story file, which smacks of a mistake hiding rewrite of history. It's also important to make readers feel involved in the correction process. Reader representatives and ombudsmen are great, but most news organizations don't feel they can afford to hire them. Readers also like to be able to tell what was corrected.

Some features about online newspapers

Convenient way of accessing news

Some online newspapers give full access to all the site has to offer, with no advertisements and a host of customization options to ensure that all the news that is important is always only one click away. With no advertisements, enhanced headline search and access to the "Letter to the Editor" and "Translate a Paper" features one gets a lot of important content. Some online newspapers provide membership to have the ability to simultaneously search millions of articles from news sources including the BBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo and CBC etc. This is a great way to stay on top of all the issues that are critical to the reader from a variety of sources. While searching, quick browsing combines sections from any newspaper in a single page for time saving. Various sites deliver headlines and links to World, sports, business, Internet, financial, industry news and weather reports directly to a browser or email address. All news reports are updated with this kind of service.

Language is no barrier

Some sites are offering the translation facility to read news in a respective language. The resource, paperboy.com is helping in this context. For reading news in the respective language in which the newspaper appears in print medium, one needs to click on translate and the reader will get information in the desired language so we can say that language is a reduced barrier for reading news on Internet. Many news services are serving more than one language like BCSTimes (www.bcstimes.com) which is released in English and particularly Swahili for Tanzanians. Some news (www.germany-usa.com) services are joint efforts of more than one country in related business fields. The Chinese agency (www.xinhua.org) releases news in seven languages including English. As far as facts go, daily news up to about 5-10,000 characters is disseminated. However in this product, the news basically deals with China and Hong Kong.

Operation in two directions

A newspaper carries information in one direction; an online service operates in two directions, and users of an online newspaper expect involvement and responses from the producers and have come to rely upon the interactive capabilities. An online newspaper allows articles to remain available for years; it presents large collections of data that would never appear in the print product; it is read on screens instead of pages or microfilm, the previous method to archive newsprint. In many ways, it is not a newspaper at all. At the same time, it contains most of the same articles as today's paper and can be updated around the clock.

Support to print medium

Despite a commitment to the newspaper metaphor, an online service can never perfectly replicate the newspaper. Some things will always be better in the print format, but the electronic medium allows many options that are not possible on paper and changes the dynamic of the product, reading experience and reliance for research. Many of the demands on the staff of an online service are very different from those on traditional journalists. The Web is an entirely new medium. It cannot be entered merely as a cursory adaptation of what appears in print. It demands as an integrated approach to information that soon will be delivered in audio and video form as well as through text.

Prohibition of reuse

Some newspapers (www.sterling news.com) prohibit the reuse of their news and other features that are meant for their readers. Any reuse by anyone without written permission is prohibited. Some restrict readership to a subscription model, which is necessary for complete online access. Copyright varies widely and is another example where global standards will be helpful.

Newspaper article search

Various database services include newspaper article search options. These articles are searched from more than hundreds full-Text newspapers, magazines and journals. A search facility of 30 days of headlines or to allow browsing by different subject sections, such as business or sports is also included in many searches such as in (www.africanewsnow.com).

Online news and press release distribution and submission services

Various organizations like eReleases (www.ereleases.com) that provide press release writing and submission services, distributing one's release online to thousands of broadcast media sources, journalists, and writers worldwide. Unlike other press release services, they send all releases through general and targeted distribution for one low price. More than 10,000 opt-in journalists have joined and the number appears to be growing.

Coverage of other regions and nearby regions

Some news providing sites provide facility for searching news according to interest and area to which the newspaper belongs (www.thisisbrightonandhove.co.uk). Apart from news on local American states and international happenings, the NBC (www.nbc.com) site has a host of Web pages for its TV shows. It also has games, contests, and online shopping and interactive broadcast. Russian newspaper (www.itar-tass.com) provides photo service basically focused on respective countries, and offers news translated from its correspondents, along with graphics. One can read the news or hear news on Real Audio. A photo essay and video of the day are some of the other features of www.wire.ap.org. Ap.org (www.ap.org) tells how to manage company's data communications and technology marketing. This is very common in the integrated media empires that combine many technologies and formats, including television, cinema, press, etc.

Some facts about online newspapers

The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) President and CEO John F. Sturm states, "Rather than becoming the replacement for its print version, as so many predicted it would be, the Internet has afforded newspapers a unique opportunity to leverage the news and information – and the interested audience – into a new medium," "Like their print counterparts, online newspapers deliver the content their readers want, and by extension, the quality audience that advertisers seek." Although most newspaper World Wide Web sites in the USA and Canada are no more than five years old, half are breaking even or already beginning to show a profit. The longer a site has been in business, the more likely it is to be profitable.

According to recent studies done by why-not.com (www.why-not.html/index.html) and digitaledge (www.digitaledge.com) people were aware of 17,913 online newspapers; 13,482 online newspapers were never visited, 6,845 online newspapers were visited in a recent month; 2,123 online newspapers were contacted with merchants and 947 online newspapers were purchased by new owners. Some other interesting facts are as follows:

• •

  A total of 87 percent of print journalists are connected to the Internet.

• •

  Circulation base of Web Week is 125,000.

• •

  Circulation base of BusinessWeek is 1,025,000. It shows the strength of web over print by comparing them.

• •

  A total of 82 percent of the Web users consider Web access to be "indispensable".

• •

  Newspaper Web sites are the top choice for local news and information.

• •

  Online newspaper users are "power users".

• •

  Printed local newspapers are the leading source of local advertising for both general Internet users (48 percent) and online newspaper readers (28 percent).

• •

  Online newspaper users are more affluent and tend to be better educated than general Internet users.

• •

  Newspaper online users are more avid online shoppers, and tend to spend more than general Internet users.

• •

  Print-newspaper readership among Internet users mirrors that of the general population.

• •

  Online newspaper users are considerably more likely than general Internet users to turn to the Internet every day for national and world news.

Various news sources for news services on the Internet

Some professional media promotion companies are dedicated to providing small and medium sized businesses, non-profit organizations, entrepreneurs, practitioners, artists, musicians and others, access to the nation's media through news and press release services. They provide powerful promotional media exposure and publicity through professional press release writing and distribution, targeted directly to news media professionals at the nation's newspapers, television and radio stations and magazines. Some offer a variety of online services including daily feature stories, a free press release service, published throughout the day seven days per week, live chats with top environmental authors and panelists, weekly polls and daily streaming webcasts. Enn.com (www.ennn.com) is providing information about environmental events, meetings and campaigns, green e-commerce, wholesale distribution and home-based businesses.

Indian newspapers online

Indian newspapers were not available on the Internet due to lack of Internet facility until Gateway Internet Access Service (GAIS) of VSNL opened for Indian newspaper industries to let their online version be available for international access. From India The Hindu was the first newspaper to appear on the Internet. Naiduniya was the first paper to appear in Hindi language. India Abroad (www.indiaabroad.com) is the oldest Indian newspaper in North America, and the largest outside of India. One can read the top stories in all of these today with frequent multiple-times a day updates.

Sources to search online newspapers

Various sources are available on the Internet to search online newspapers. One can search across millions of articles from major international newspapers and publications like Time and Newsweek with the help of services such as ask.elibrary (www.ask.elibrary.com). Paperboy (www.paperboy.com) provides headline metasearch by selecting the sources Yahoo and MSNBC and allows users to search BBC, CNN, ABC, CBC and NineMSN. One can search by country and state accordingly. Searching by top newspapers with the help of functionality like "Top drawer newspapers" is also provided. We can't ignore one special service "Listen to the news", i.e. the radio news service. One can also visit randomly selected newspapers in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic or Chinese. Many libraries maintain subject web sites that direct readers and scholars to a range of sources for foreign, historical, university, juvenile, specific regional coverage or particular strength in newspaper coverage.

New technologies and online newspaper reading

Online newspaper and computer alarm clock

The world's first Internet clock was an MP3 player. After loading the online newspapers front pages, it wakes up with an MP3 or a preset sound. After downloading and installing WakeUp News (www.wakeupnews.com), one will be able to select the online newspapers that are required to be read from a handy list or type their Web addresses. Then it will be indicated at which time the online newspapers should be automatically loaded and the type of wanted alarm: the choice of mp3 or tone. That is an application of MP3 that may not have been initially considered.

NewsRover Usenet newsreader

There is a powerful Usenet newsgroup scanning and decoding newsreader program for Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, XP and Millennium. It handles UU and MIME base64 decoding. It reconstructs multi-part files. It has built-in picture gallery. News Rover is proudly produced in the USA. It excels at sifting through multiple servers, multiple newsgroups, and all the ensuing messages, then downloading only those that match the set criteria. One can program NewsRover to dial up on a set schedule, winnow Usenet, deposit messages and even binary files onto the drive, and then log off.

News index ticker

This ticker can be added to the Web pages, by a cut and paste readymade code. Readers also have the option of getting a customized news ticker as described at www.newsindex.com/tickercust.html

Categorizing news

As Google is providing news services (www.news.google.com), the stories are sorted by importance under the headings Top Stories, World, US, Business, Sci/Tech, Sports, Entertainment and Health. There are no journalism editors that work on this site, instead the output is created by searching a range of sources. Computer algorithms without human intervention generate the pages. After scanning the sites, the program clusters or arranges news by subject. Each site has a rank (the number of sites that have links to it is considered on the assumption that the most credible sites will be most frequently linked). The importance of a story is also judged by how and where it appears elsewhere on the Web. It uses weighted scores for sites and stories, avoiding the excesses and idiosyncrasies of individual editors (Krishna, 2002).

News from different sectors

We can access Internet for reach different types of subjects and topics like health and auction services (www.auctionnews.co.uk) (www.inman.com), war, electronic news (www.enewsservices.com) etc. One can get music information by accessing music portal (www.kweevak.com). Catholicnews (www.catholicnews.com) and Religionnews (www.religionnews.com) are providing religious information. None of the fields of interest are out of reach from the vast amount of information on the Internet. Consumer health coverage is a growing area of online newspaper content. Establishing credibility and knowing how to evaluate the information one finds in these sources is an important responsibility for all readers.

Advertisement and e-commerce

The Internet was considered an important platform for advertising. Newsbytes (www.newsbytes.com) gives examples in Italy where classified advertisements got their place on the Internet in the year 1997. As more investment opportunities are planned for the Web, publishers must carefully consider their accounting and privacy procedures. An executive may think a paper's site is performing well because its advertising revenue covers its marginal Web operating costs. But this may be delusional if it does not include a proper share of the newspaper's editorial, operating and administrative expenses. Making the Web pay off will take time and effort. But newspapers have no alternative in this competitive arena. According to Wilsonandhorton (www.wilsonandhorton.co.nz) they claim that the redesigning can also increase the availability of color advertising on editorial pages. In October 1996, a report by Frost and Sullivan (www.techweb.cmp.co/ia/iad_web/newsnow/oct21-25/ oct25/oct25-4.htm) claimed that advertising was fast becoming the largest growing segment of the Internet, accounting for 3.4 percent or $85,000,000 of all ad dollars spent in 1996. The market was expected to grow to 22.2 percent or $5,480,000,000 by 2002. Online newspaper readers report that after the print edition, the newspaper's Web site is their choice for local advertising information, beating out television, radio, shoppers and giveaways, and the Telephone Yellow Pages. Even today advertising potential remains unfulfilled. Half of the newspaper Web sites have a special advertising sales staff, while the rest rely on the print sales force. Getting newspaper sales people to sell ads on the Internet, even with training seem to be challenging.

Web advertising has some options. One is general rotation advertising, where a banner advertisement is rotated through the entire issue and rotated throughout the site. Another option opens to potential advertisers. If the site is targeted rotation advertising, the advertiser chooses which pages the ad will be rotated on. Some sites provide the email addresses, telephone numbers and physical address of their advertising department where potential advertisers can get more information about being featured on the site. Some provide free advertising to businesses in the area. They also design and host web sites for these businesses, creating more awareness of the site by including their name in the URL (www.mediuk.co.uk). Various resources can be useful like directories etc. These can provide proper listing of advertising agencies and online newspaper. Various online news agencies are providing services for advertising in online newspaper (www.adbeats.com). Co-operative funding and developing balance media mix, advertising planning and tracking and solid customer relationship building are essential considerations for advertising in online newspapers.

Editing

Editing information for online newspapers has been described as a job of challenge. Some newspapers have a schedule for editing. Some online newspapers are providing the facility of direct connection to the editing room (www.indianvillage.com/nativenews/getstarted1.htm). For efficient editing of online newspapers courses can be conducted as it is a different process.

Place in news service

An online newspaper can not fully replace the print edition until it is as easy to tote an Internet-access computer, as it is to grab a newspaper at the corner store. The Web will enhance print media, not detract from it, because the Web edition has unlimited space to run longer pieces and use multimedia to enhance stories. And searching for an old article on the Web is more time efficient (and less messy) than leafing through piles of back issues or scrolling through reels of microfilm. The future of online papers is not a future of clones. The Web can and will take on a life of its own, distinct from the print editions. This should be encouraged both at the college and professional levels, because that is the best way to ensure that the two mediums can successfully coexist. The Internet isn't replacing the printed product. Audiences still are small compared with those for newspapers. The typical newspaper site gets relatively few users in the course of a week, compared with the cumulative impact of its daily circulation, although changes are occurring in different markets. Thus, moving onto the information highway, an online newspaper should show real value of the print version along with its own grandeur. Information should be presented and organized logically covering its editing. Some standards must be followed for value-targeted editing so that online newspaper can be given credibility and technology will continue to evolve offering new challenges along the way.

Conclusion

To make newspaper reading more interactive, online newspapers should include features, such as free e-mail and chat room. For generating visits and page impressions, it's absolutely necessary to offer services like share prices, telephone charges, online charges, information about taxes, new jobs, education and other high interest topics. Newspapers now have the infrastructure and the resources in talent and capital for success on the Internet. But this will take patience and a large amount of trial and error to refine the process.

The Web is not entirely a new medium now but it cannot be entered merely as a cursory adaptation of what appears in print. It demands an integrated approach to information that soon will be delivered in audio and video form as well as through text. New media presents us an ever-moving landscape. For the foreseeable future, the Web will be a medium that is in constant change and requiring near-constant adaptation. The rapid pace does little to facilitate reflection or planning, but demands movement and action.

References

Krishna, V. (2002), "An engine on the news track", Sunday Hindustan Times, October 27, p. 13.Mohan, H.R. (1999), "Indian newspapers on the Internet", in Kaul, H.K. (Ed.), Library and Information Networking – NACLIN 98, DELNET, New Delhi, pp. 164-86.

Shiva Kanaujia (shivajrf@rediffmail.com) is Junior Research Fellow, Department of Library & Information Science, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India; Rochna Srivastava (rochnal@rediffmail.com) is Reader & Head of Department, Department of Library & Information Science, Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, India.