Funding Credit: Internet On The Air is a production of the University of
Michigan School of Information and Michigan radio, made possible by a grant from the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation.
When the stock market plunged more than 500 points on October 27 most
Americans first heard the news on television or radio. But as the day wore on, more and
more people tuned into the Internet for details. A study by the Pew Research Center for
people and the Press found that while the Internet audience was relatively small, its
numbers tripled over the course of the day. More than half of all news watchers with
Internet access followed the day's events online.
At its best, Internet news combines the immediacy of broadcasting with the depth of
newspapers. During the stock market plunge, Internet users were able to track their
holdings...and some were able to place orders to their brokers, although the system
quickly became overwhelmed. This ability to personalize news...and respond to it...is
unique to the Internet.
There now are sites that help viewers select news of interest to them, while bypassing
the rest. The result is a personalized daily edition, often drawn from hundreds of on-line
news sources. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, researchers have
developed Web sites in which the content of on-line newspapers changes in response to the
comments of viewers. Broadcasters, too, have launched elaborate on-line ventures, like
MS-NBC, to keep viewers up to date on breaking news. A major story like the White House
Intern scandal leads to a proliferation of special reports on the Internet.
Internet news has enormous potential...but for the most part it hasn't been profitable.
Publishers like the New York Times and Knight-Ridder each lost more than 10-million
dollars last year on their Internet ventures. Some analysts believe that these sites will
never make money until they begin charging user fees.
So for now, news on the Internet remains a story in progress. To learn more about
on-line news, visit our Web site at www.iota.org. For Internet On The Air, I'm Todd Mundt.
