In his most recent Editor and Publisher column, Steve Outing took a look back at his ten-plus years of involvement in creating online media.

Steve describes how he left the world of print journalism back in 1993 for online media: "One of the first things I did back then was start an Internet e-mail discussion list for the then still small group of media people who were starting to work -- or were at least interested in -- this new thing called the Internet and the then-prevalent proprietary online services." Former colleague Harold Owens asked Steve if he had archived any of the discussions from the early days of this list. Much of the early days of the list were not properly archived, so Owens then took to searching the Web. He was able to uncover some of the Online-News archives from 10 years ago. Steve then culled from these discussions some topics that he believes benefit from a look back.

Leading the list of topics is a discussion on what was then called "Smart ads." In 1996, it was a "novel concept" to think that a newspaper could target online advertising "based on the content of news articles." While some thought that what Yahoo! could do, so could an online newspaper, other thought different: "That most newspaper people resisted such notions -- as shown by the mid-1990s discussions on this topic -- is a telling demonstration that even then, pure-play Internet companies were leading the way with innovative ideas, while the newspaper industry wasted time fretting about ideas that challenged "the way we've always done it."

The lesson for today is simple: "it's to free up your media company from old ways of doing things -- to permit new ways of doing business and practicing journalism that directly challenge the status quo." Today's biggest challenge is how to deal with citizen journalism. Steve offers his prediction for 10 years from now: "we'll see that media has incorporated citizen media with mainstream journalism, and journalism as a whole will be better for it. And most of those traditional journalists who argue against the worth of citizen media today will be won over. But I expect that history will show how mainstream news companies lagged while other Internet companies ran with the concept and figured out how to make it pay."

Steve also considered the "widening" of journalists' job descriptions. What triggered this was a discussion in 1996 about the "wisdom of asking reporters to code their stories in HTML," and the opinion that asking reporters to do more than write would "distract them from their core task."

Reporters in 2006, Steve believes, are capable of more than merely writing: Today's reporters ideally should be comfortable not just with writing, but also be able to record digital audio, perhaps shoot some video, collect material for multimedia versions of their stories or for supplemental content that's published online, etc. They can be expected to participate in online chats with readers occasionally. They are expected to write instant news alerts for their organization's website."

The third topic that caught Steve's eye was a discussion on whether an online newspaper should be just another means of delivering traditional news content, or if newspapers should take "an approach of emphasizing things like interactive discussion groups and getting the audience to participate. In one thread, a majority of participants supported the continued domination of "plain old information content" presented in new ways (online) and utilizing new technology. A typical comment: "I think providing high-quality content will be the critical service, just like it is when we smear ink on dead logs."

Steve notes that even then, many journalists did not see the value of how the Internet would increase communication between people and journalists and that people would want to be part of news production. He quotes another forward-thinking editor, Rosalind Resnick on the possibility: ""To me, the incredible thing about the Net is that now the reader *is* the publisher, and amateurs ... are just as likely to succeed in Internet publishing as the New York Times. Or does the newspaper industry arrogantly believe that it can control content of every kind?"

There appears to be little change in the way traditional journalists viewed the Internet, and specifically citizen journalism, in 1995 and how they view it today: "When I hear from some traditional journalists that what they produce is superior to blogs and citizen journalism, I just shake my head. That thinking is "so 1995." Just as the work of professional journalists will continue to record and make history, so too -- on occasion -- will amateur bloggers and eyewitness amateur reporters."

Further: "It doesn't seem to me that we've come far enough along as an industry to make a smooth transition from the old news business models to the new ones that will need to supplant those revenue streams that are beginning to dry up. Today's discussions within the industry have some similarities to those of a decade ago."

Concluding, Steve offers this link to a report he compiled in 1995 of "online activities of of the newspaper industry." The report paints a detailed picture of how far newspapers have come in establishing independent presences online since the days of proprietary online Internet services and bulletin-board services (BBS).

(via CyberJournalist.net)