I finished a paper on the Internet’s relationship with newspapers before the Thanksgiving break last week. I thought I’d put it up here for popular consumption.
Other news:
1) My story on Rate My Professor was picked for 9th place in the feature writing competition for the Hearst Journalism Awards competition.
2) I continue to blog for the Herald.
3) Finals begin Tuesday, Dec. 5.
4) I didn’t win Winthrop’s ethics competition last weekend, but the Hearst award will nurse the bruised ego.
5) We discovered college presidents are getting paid more!
And now…
The Internet’s relationship with newspapers
Since the Internet became widely available, it has exploded in popularity among American households. Nearly three out of four Americans go online, according to a recent study (“Pew Internet & American Life Project”). In the last decade, the household penetration rate of Internet access in the United States has rocketed from roughly 20 percent to 73 percent (“Pew Internet & American Life Project”).
At the same time the American public embraced the Internet, newspaper circulation has plunged. The agency that reports on the circulation of many newspapers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations, reported the steepest circulation losses in over a decade have occurred in just the last six months (Woodard). In the last 20 years, newspaper circulation has fallen over 30 percent (Woodard).
With newspaper circulation dwindling, the influence of newspapers may be falling, since fewer people read a paper daily. This is a problem for newspapers, which depends on readers for advertisers, who fund journalists’ paychecks.
In response to the Internet’s competition, newspapers have embraced the medium with online versions. Unlike FCC rules governing cross-ownership of newspapers and radio and TV, newspapers are able to own Web sites with no legal repercussions (Meyer 32). In 1997, only half of the 100 largest American papers had an online presence (Boczkowski 
. Less than 24 months later, only two of the largest papers did not own a Web site (Boczkowski .
The Effect of Internet Newspapers
University of Texas professor Zhanqui Cao and Southern Illinois University professor Xigen Li tested whether increased Internet use has cause newspaper circulation to decline (Internet Newspapers 124). Cao and Lee found that Internet newspaper readership has been “growing dramatically since 1995 while the overall print newspaper circulation was declining” (Internet Newspapers 132). However, their study did not find a correlation between Internet use and circulation decline. Cao and Li found a “limited effect of the growth of the Internet newspaper readership on newspaper circulation” (Internet Newspapers 133).
The two researchers named four key factors that supported their finding. First, Internet newspaper readers “were more likely to be those who read print newspapers quite often as well” (Internet Newspapers 133). Second, Internet newspapers are not as popular as the print editions due to access requirements, although this hurdle is rapidly disappearing in the United States (Internet Newspapers 133). Third, “most online newspapers remained complements to traditional print newspapers” (Internet Newspapers 133). In other words, newspaper readers who enjoy the print edition might go online for additional information and the Internet reader might explore the print version. Fourth, there is a wide variety of news sources on the Internet (Internet Newspapers 133). This last factor has a greater negative effect on newspapers with a lower circulation. Cao and Lee found that “the smaller the newspaper, the larger effect the Internet newspapers had on the print newspapers” (Internet Newspapers 133).
A 2006 Harvard University study complements Cao and Lee’s findings. Douglas Ahlers, who conducted the study, found “online news acts as a complement rather than a substitute” (Ahlers 29). The Harvard study also found that only 12 percent of news consumers have entirely substituted Internet news for print news (Ahlers 52).
The Cao and Li study provides positive conclusions for newspapers in regards to the Internet: “With little chance of being replaced by the online version, the print newspapers could grow with the Internet newspapers, which are opening up broader prospects for the newspaper industry” (Internet Newspapers 135).
Television might have more to worry about than newspapers. A 2004 study found broadcast television experienced a “significant displacement effect” from the Internet while there was only “some” newspaper displacement (Dimmick 31). The study also found a “high degree of overlap” between traditional media outlets, such as newspapers, and the Internet (Dimmick 31). Newspaper readers are not replacing their print edition with the Internet. Instead, the study suggests readers are using online technologies to augment their news consumption.
The Internet and Newsroom Changes
The Internet has redefined papers and forced them to move more quickly.
The Internet has radically altered the newsroom. Newspapers “require an organizational and cultural shift to take advantage of the immediacy of online” (Ward 134). Before the Internet, print reporters had the advantage of being able to take an entire day to work on a story, to perfect it and add depth, according to media professional Tom Rouillard.
“The Internet has redefined papers and forced them to move more quickly and to report breaking news,” said Rouillard, technology manager for News Over Wireless, a company that helps media companies broadcast text, images, and video to cell phones. Rouillard was previously a product development manager for McClatchy Interactive, the interactive division of The McClatchy Company, the second-largest American newspaper company.
“It has given newspapers a vehicle to compete with TV,” Rouillard said. “It has forced newspaper reporters to think about writing stories in stages and fleshing the story out over the day.”
Rouillard said reporters are often expected to immediately post a brief on a newspaper’s Web site and then add depth to the story throughout the day. Chris Hendricks, vice president of McClatchy Interactive, also thinks the Internet has prompted a shift in reporting methods.
“Stories are being told in different forms,” Hendricks said.
Hendricks said stories are being told in a multimedia format, which include video and audio content (Hendricks). He said since newspapers are no longer being limited by the printing press, newspapers provide more options to users, such as carrying color photos with each story (Hendricks).
Along with an evolution in the presentation of stories, the Internet is enabling reporters to write more in-depth stories. Because technology enables users to rapidly search vast repositories of information, the Internet “gives reporters access to sources of information, both documents and human, that they would never have known existed before” (Burns 96). Lynette Sheridan Burns, who was a journalist for more than 25 years and is currently head of the School of Communication Arts at the University of Western Sydney in Australia, says online information can add authority to stories and generate new ideas (Burns 96).
The Internet is also changing the speed of newspaper reporting. Papers are no longer finding it taboo to post scoops online. When The Denver Post learned police arrested beer mogul and former Senate candidate Pete Coors for driving under the influence of alcohol, the paper posted the information online before running the story in the print edition (Shaw 58). Not surprisingly, the reporter who first wrote the Coors story claims she “does all of her newspaper reading online – and knows that if one site doesn’t have an update she wants, she can find others that will” (Shaw 60). Executive director of the Online News Association, Lori Schwab, sees online scoops as commonplace.
“Most major newspapers have long accepted that they frequently must break stories on the Internet,” Schwab said in an American Journalism Review story (Shaw 60).
A Change in User Experience
“Anything that engages readers is good.”
The Internet has allowed newspaper readers to interact with their paper. “One significant advantage of [the Internet] is the ability to let readers into the process,” Temple journalism professor Christopher Harper says (Harper 52).
Online features such as blogs, user comments, and e-mail feedback have enabled users to connect more deeply with newspapers.
“Anything that engages readers is good,” said Chris Hendricks, vice president of McClatchy Interactive (Hendricks).
University of Nevada-Reno journalism professors Jennifer D. Greer and Donica Mensing made a content analysis of online newspapers from 1997 until 2003. Greer and Mensing found that “the ability to engage readers in two-way communication has been on of the distinguishing features of online publishing” (Internet Newspapers 16). Between 1997 and 2003, Greer and Mensing found that most newspapers had at least some interactive features such as polls, real-time chat, quizzes, e-mail, message boards, blogs, story comments, and links (Internet Newspapers 17).
Louisiana State University professor Qian Zeng and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale professor Xigen Li studied interactivity in 106 newspaper Web sites. Through telephone and e-mail surveys, Zeng and Li found that readers think “higher interactivity is more desirable” (Internet Newspapers 155). They found that the interactive aspect of the Internet provides readers with added value in addition to the print product (Internet Newspapers 155).
The Newspaper as Validator
The speed of the Internet has given newspapers a new duty, not as information gatekeepers but as validators.
Randall Rothenberg of the Echo Communications Group says the speed of the Internet has given newspapers a new duty, not as information gatekeepers but as “validators” (Rothenberg 32). With so much information uploaded continuously onto the Internet, newspapers have the responsibility to edit and analyze stories. Unlike some gossip Web sites, reputable newspapers cannot post every bit of hearsay that crosses the news desk. Rothenberg claims the “validator” role of newspapers will make them “more important than they are now” (32).
Bob Giles, the curator of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, has expressed concern that the Internet’s speed is sacrificing journalistic quality. Giles worked for 40 years as a reporter and was formerly the editor of The Detroit News.
“Can the freewheeling, provocative, irreverent nature of the Web adapt to a culture whose traditions have been shaped by a more sober, structured medium?” asked Bob Giles in a column for Neiman Reports, a Harvard University publication (3).
Giles is not overly concerned because he believes traditional media groups will dominate the Web (3). Giles wrote that media groups with “insufficient capital or marginal journalistic reputations or weak marketing strategies are being weeded out” (Giles 3). Giles might be right. A survey released in early October 2006 by LexisNexis, the database and research company, proclaims, “Today’s customers trust traditional media sources the most” (LexisNexis). The survey found that media consumers look to large media companies when a big story happens rather than to independent journalists on the Internet. Only six percent of respondents said they would look to an Internet blog for news coverage (LexisNexis).
According to European journalist and author Jörg Bartussek, “one of the biggest advantages of print versus electronic media is that they are considered to have a higher degree of credibility” (Bartussek 46). Bartussek believes that in order to be successful, newspapers must “create credibility on the Internet” by transferring their print credibility to the online realm (Bartussek 47). He believes this perceived credibility gives newspapers an additional benefit over competitors.
Other journalism professionals agree. Temple University journalism professor Christopher Harper believes “the credibility of the content stands as the key to success” (Harper 57).
The new pace of technology and the “erosion of journalistic ethics” are the two major challenges facing journalism, according to John Hughes, editor of the Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City, Utah (Hughes). Like Rothenberg, Hughes believes newspapers provide “credibility to the information” readers find on the Internet. Unethical journalists who tarnish the credibility of newspapers can therefore do more harm than previously thought, Hughes says.
In a 2000 study, consumers were surveyed in order to “ascertain their perceptions of the credibility of the Internet as an information source” compared to newspapers, television, radio, and other traditional news sources (Gunter 159). Newspapers were “rated significantly higher in credibility than other media” (Gunter 159). The survey respondents said information found in a newspaper was more likely to be verifiable elsewhere than information found on Web sites (Gunter 159).
Barrie Gunter, a journalism professor from the University of Leicester, England, writes that information on the Internet that came from a print-based source is often more reliable because it undergoes a more rigorous editorial process (Gunter 158). “The information delivered through mass media sources provides a certain level of security to information consumers” (Gunter 158). According to Gunter, information on Web sites “might be dubious or difficult to appraise” (Gunter 159). According to a Pew Research Center study in 2000, only Web sites created by traditional media outlets are “editorial policies firmly established and are found to positively affect users’ perceptions of information credibility” (Gunter 159).
The editorial process of newspapers provides them with an advantage on the Internet over their online competitors. Newspapers in the Internet age will serve not only as rapid information providers but as information credibility checkpoints.
The future
By retaining credibility and providing users with innovative online features, newspapers may be around many decades more.
Newspapers have fully embraced the Internet. Now Internet companies are returning the embrace. In a recent development, the two dominant search engines, Google and Yahoo!, have inked advertising deals with newspaper chains.
On Nov. 20, 2006, Yahoo! announced it will share news and other content with over 150 newspapers (Gonsalves). Yahoo! will share advertising revenue with “Belo Corporation, Cox Newspapers, Hearst Newspapers, Journal Register Company, Lee Enterprises, MediaNews Group, and The E.W. Scripps Company” (Gonsalves). The companies will share job listings and other local content.
“What the newspapers bring that really changes the game is local distribution,” Daniel J. Finnigan, senior VP of HotJobs, said in an Information Week story (Gonsalves).
Google collaborated with several newspapers in early November 2006 to buy print advertisements. Google’s partnership “will let advertisers place bids on space in more than 50 major newspapers across the U.S.” (Fine). While Yahoo! partnered with smaller papers, Google inked deals with higher profile newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Google purchased newspaper advertising space and advertisers can pick which publication best fits their target audience (Fine). Advertisers will then place an auction bid for advertising space on a central Web site owned by Google (Fine).
Along with partnerships, some newspapers own successful Internet ventures. Top Internet Web sites such as CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com, and Apartments.com are owned by newspaper companies. Apartments.com and Cars.com are owned by Classified Ventures, LLC, which is jointly owned by seven media companies including Gannett, The New York Times Company, The Washington Post Company, and The McClatchy Company (“In Volatile Market”). Cars.com is owned by McClatchy, The Washington Post Company, The Tribune Company, and the Belo Corporation.
“Newspapers recognized opportunity early on,” said Chris Hendricks, vice president of McClatchy Interactive (Hendricks). “Cars.com, CareerBuilder, and Apartments.com are pretty big names and leaders on the Internet.”
Hendricks said these Web sites are in the top two among online competitors.
The Internet has provided new opportunities and challenges to newspapers. Online technologies have forever changed print journalism, but many of the changes have been positive, such as added depth and multimedia now found in the online version newspapers. The Internet can serve as an important forum for a newspaper and provided benefit through supplementary features. By retaining credibility and providing users with innovative online features, newspapers may be around many decades more.
Works Cited
Ahlers, Douglas. “News Consumption and the New Electronic Media.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11(2006): 29-52.
Bartussek, Jörg. “Credibility.” Media Management: Leveraging Content for Profitable Growth. Ed. Andrej Vizjak. Berlin: Springer, 2003.
Boczkowski, Pablo. Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers. Cambridge, MA: 2004.
Burns, Lynette Sheridan. Understanding Journalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc, 2002.
Dimmick, John, Yan Chen, and Zhan Li. “Competition Between the Internet and Traditional News Media: The Gratification-Opportunities Niche Dimension.” Journal of Media Economics 17(2004): 19-33.
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Giles, Bob. “Journalism in the era of the Web.” Nieman Reports 54(2000): 3.
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Gunter, Barrie. News and the Net. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003.
Harper, Christopher. And That’s the Way It Will Be: news and information in a digital world. New York: NYU Press, 1998.
Hendricks, Chris. Telephone interview. 07 Nov 2006.
Herbert, John. Journalism in the Digital Age: Theory and Practice for Broadcast, Print and On-line Media. Boston: Focal Press, 2000.
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Internet Newspapers: The Making of a Mainstream Medium. Ed. Xigen Li. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006.
LexisNexis Survey Shows Today’s Consumers Trust Traditional Media Sources the Most. 02 Oct 2006. LexisNexis. 30 Oct 2006 .
Meyer, Philip. The Vanishing Newspaper: Saving Journalism in the Information Age. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004.
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Rouillard, Tom. Telephone interview. 27 Oct 2006.
Shaw, Donna. “Online Scoops.” American Journalism Review 28(2006): 58-60.
“In Volatile Market, Apartments.com Closes Record 2001, Anticipates Even Stronger Market Presence in 2002.” Aparments.com. 28 Jan 2002. Apartments.com. 21 Nov 2006 .
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Woodard, Niki. Not Much Good News in the New Circulation Numbers. 01 Nov 2006. Project for Excellence in Journalism. 01 Nov 2006 .
