PressEthic

Thanks to constantly updated news web sites, our concept of the news cycle has sped up from hours to mere seconds. The internet has consequently triggered a radical change in the nature of media competition. According to Donna Shaw in the October/November edition of the American Journalism Review, this accelerated cycle has especially influenced the culture of news scoops.

Shaw has framed her story around a June, 2006 Denver Post article on the drunk driving arrest of Pete Coors, tycoon of Coors Beer. Instead of holding the story for its print edition, the publication decided to first publish the scoop on its web site.

“It's not so long ago that such a decision would have been deemed heresy. The Post, traditionalists would have exclaimed, had foolishly "scooped itself."

But in today's crowded and competitive media landscape, with newspaper companies repositioning themselves as information conglomerates that disseminate news via everything from ink-on-paper to the Internet to PDAs to cell phones, the move made perfect sense.

AJR article

It's also a reminder that the definitions of "scoop" and "exclusive" are evolving in the era of convergence. The Internet makes it much more dicey to hold a news story until your next edition; chances are greater than ever that someone will beat you to it. So investigative, enterprise and project stories have become the primary exclusives to be held for the print version.”

It may come as no surprise that breaking news stories can no longer be held to the next morning’s print edition. The news reading public is arguably better served than ever, and reporters more tightly pressed.

“Post Editor Gregory L. Moore says increased competition from mainstream journalists as well as bloggers means that breaking news generally belongs on the Web. "My definition of a scoop has changed in the sense of how long you think you have a story exclusively," he says. "If you have a story for an hour, you need to make the most of that hour."”

Shaw reports that some controversy took place in the Post’s newsroom; since a tip to the paper had exposed the Coors story, some members of the editorial staff did not see it necessary to rush the article into the online edition.

“"I had no problem with it, but I know my immediate editor, who got the tip..was disappointed in that decision," says Felisa Cardona, the reporter who wrote the story. "I think he felt like, 'We're going to have this because of my tip, and nobody else is going to have it except us until tomorrow.'.. But I just feel like everybody knows we got the story first."

Carlos Illescas, who got the Coors tip and was Cardona's editor, says he wanted to hold the story for at least a few more hours and post it later in the day. The Post put the story on its Web site at about 11 a.m., allowing other news organizations to run with it — some even implying it was their own "scoop," he says.”

Some media experts are criticizing Post’s decision:

“Says Jonathan Dube, a vice president of the Online News Association and publisher of CyberJournalist.net: "In this day and age, it would be foolish for any newspaper company to just think of itself as a 'newspaper' company and not a media company. The notion that a company like the Denver Post could 'scoop' itself is ridiculous and narrow-minded."”

Shaw’s sources from Rocky Mountain News and the Oklahoman said that articles with a more project-or enterprise angle are the kinds that appear first on the printed front page.

Said Mike Shannon, managing editor of the Oklahoman:

“"The same tipster could tip somebody else. We kind of wrestle with this on a daily basis," Shannon says. "Our general rule of thumb is that we tend to publish on the Internet anything of a breaking nature. With projects, we use the Internet as a supporting resource for what we can't get into the paper."

Rusty Coats of Tampa Bay Online articulated the changed world of print news, from being a breaker of exclusive stories to holding a responsibility for interpretation and analysis:

“"Online breaking stories are very iterative — you print what you know when you know it and then you add to it," Coats says. "The things that make print wonderful are enterprise and analysis and depth."”

He continues:

“Coats says most of the reporters in his converged newsroom, like Cardona, accept the system as reality: You post the stories when you get them. "As journalists, we're kind of a curmudgeonly group," he says. "Some react to change very well... But around the country you'll find a handful of the 'over my dead body' types" when it comes to posting scoops.”

It is no surprise that the convenience and immediacy of the internet present a danger to the print media. Print, however, still holds one great advantage, proven by online books’ slow takeoff among the public: those who desire a more in-depth learning experience are still likely to pick up a physical paper. Now print media simply needs to find a way to get more of the public to sit down and read.

AJR article