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Where's the Multimedia in Online Journalism?
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By Mike Cuenca | August 31, 1998
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Every newspaper and newsmagazine that has a Web site likes to brag that
it is involved in that trendy move to what's being called "New Media."
But that moniker, aptly applied to the spider-webby network of cables
and wires that connect millions of data receivers (computers), is
totally inappropriate when also applied to the content being presented
on this new medium. That misapplication may be a large part of why
development of true multimedia-journalism content for the World Wide
Web has been so slow.
What we put on the Web is not new. It is words and pictures. We've been
generating words and pictures for many hundreds of years. There is
nothing new or original about putting the same old stuff on a new
medium.
The New Media term may have come from the very people who have only
lately jumped on the electronic or digital bandwagon -- the newspaper
industry. Remember when the Macintosh was introduced in 1984, and soon
thereafter the publishing professionals in art, advertising,
television, and magazines were embracing electronic production?
Remember how long it took the newspaper industry to catch on? And
remember how they then coined a new phrase, "pagination," to describe
the very same kind of desktop electronic production that corporate
communicators, advertising agencies and magazines had been doing for
years? New Media is the pagination of the late 90s.
The Web is a medium in continual transition, yet the content ,
principally text, that newspapers (and journals) put there is nothing
new. Newspapers have yet to catch up to multimedia, even though that
isn't new either. The Web's most advanced and technologically
up-to-date presentation is only a slowed-down and adapted version of
old-fashioned multimedia, the kind of stuff we see in movie theaters,
classrooms, conventions, and at home on TV.
Multimedia: Decades Old
Multimedia is the concurrent use of multiple presentation media to
communicate a message. It can be as simple as using still pictures and
narration. Basic multimedia presentations -- filmstrips with audio-tape
accompaniment, multi-projector audio/visual presentations featured in
large convention halls, even sound-and-motion pictures and videos --
have been produced for decades. The only real difference is that on the
Web multimedia is slower because of the relatively slow transmission
rates of the data needed for displaying the presentations on a computer
screen. But as those rates increase -- and it seems they do every month
-- the best content on the Web will begin to look more and more like a
form of multimedia that is anything but new, television.
(Some might argue that the interactivity of the Web is new or unique.
But it really isn't. Interactivity is the ability to control the
information coming at you, to be an active rather than a passive
recipient. Sure, the computer offers us faster interactivity and access
to millions of volumes at our fingertips. But we could always restart a
filmstrip where we wanted, and we could always start and stop a film or
videotape when we wanted, and we could always change the channel -- why
else would many Website navigation buttons be configured like a TV
remote? For that matter, we were always able pick up a newspaper or
magazine and turn right to a particular section or page we wanted,
bypassing the linear progression from front to back cover.)
The danger, then, is failing to recognize that what is today "new" for
this new medium will tomorrow be history. The danger is failing to
recognize that we should be obsessed not with the medium, but with the
content we put on the medium. The solution is to stop thinking of
tomorrow's Web window as a computer and to start thinking of it as a
television with built-in interactivity. To stop thinking of television
as separate from the computer and start thinking of it as the eventual
primary receiver of the Web's datastream.
It's not hard to find good-looking and user-friendly Web sites
published by the traditional print media, where you can choose to read
their previously published print content, where you can choose to have
your favorite content "pushed" to you, where you can even search back
through months or years of published content. But even the best of them
really amount only to glorified print archives, where usually the only
content even approaching what we would call multimedia is in the clever
ads of brave, pioneering Web advertisers.
How many of those print journalism Web sites allow you to do more than
read? How many of them allow you to listen? Or watch even a rudimentary
motion picture? How many of them offer something that wasn't first
published on paper? There are exceptions, of course, but the rule is
static and boring text on what could be an exciting and enticing active
medium.
The Convergence of the Web and TV
Look ahead to the convergence of the Web and TV. Imagine trying to
compete for advertising dollars and Website visitors with a Website
that allows visitors to come home and, at their leisure, launch
multimedia coverage of news from a menu of stories, each of which would
be presented by a Peter Jennings-type anchorperson, complete with
full-screen video footage and sound. That's where we're headed:
interactive TV. Relatively soon, the computer and the TV are going to
converge in an information-access system that will be like interactive
cable television. Reader/viewers will be able to pick and choose what
they want to watch or hear -- down to the specific news or information
item -- at the moment they want it.
At that point, who's going to care about "reading" journalism on something like today's old-fashioned World Wide Web?
Maybe that is still five or more years down the road, but it is coming.
To remain competitive in the media market, newspapers and magazines
(and even journals) need to begin now to fully explore this new medium.
The technology and the resources are available right now to newspaper
publishers: Simple multimedia enhancements can be produced quickly and
cheaply with existing hardware and software.
Active-multimedia content is missing from these media outlets primarily
because the professionals who could create it for newspaper and
magazine publishers are also missing. One reason is that the first
person a publisher hires to create a presence on this new medium is a
Webmaster or a Web manager (or someone with a similar title) from among
colleagues, friends and associates in the print medium. He or she may
even find someone who's a talented "uni-media" Web professional,
someone who knows the technology, but has experience producing for only
one medium. Few among those newspaper and magazine managers, designers
or photojournalists -- even those who have enough technological moxie
to handle these new jobs -- also know anything about how to produce a
video or multimedia presentation.
Relying on Newsroom Content
Because of the single-medium career paths followed by many contemporary
print journalists, these de facto Web leaders often fall back and rely
on the content already being developed in their newsrooms. There seems
to be a general inability to see the real capabilities of this new
medium. Few newspaper editors are ready to cry, "City hall is burning!
Grab your video camera and get down there!" Those traditionally trained
editors would instead scream for banner headlines and perhaps even
color photos showing the burned hulk, but those words and still
pictures would be dumped right onto the Web -- as is. And they would
just sit there.
It's no wonder, then, that you're probably not likely to soon hear a
devoted newspaper subscriber cry out, "City hall is burning! Let's go
to the Daily Blab's on-line site and watch!"
No, it's a lot more likely that they will say, "Let's call up KWWW's
on-line channel!" because they know they'll be able to see the true
audio/visual presentation of the news.
It would be wonderful to hear that newspaper editor call for something
as simple as even a three-frame animated gif showing before, during and
after shots of the building. Or for sound bites from the mayor or
others at the scene. It wouldn't have to be full-motion video and
sound. But it would be something multimedia.
That type of simple multimedia enhancement could be incorporated into
Web sites today: It doesn't appreciably slow download times, and it
doesn't require a huge investment. The Mac software that creates
animated GIFs, Gif Builder, is available free. Search C-Net's
Shareware.Com and other download sites for free or cheap Windows
animated Gif-creation shareware. Simple sound recording and editing
software is included with both the Mac and Windows operating systems.
Supply the creativity, and you're off.
What Must Publishers Do?
With all that in mind, then, what must publishers consider when
deciding what to do with their on-line presence? First, they must
decide what kind of presence they want and can handle. If all they
really want is to plant their flag on-line, so their readers can look
at the classifieds and research past issues, then maybe all they need
is a Webmaster who's a half-decent designer and savvy with databases.
But if a publisher realizes that to leave even a minor media empire for
his or her children and their children, he or she must prepare for the
possibility that in 50 years print likely won't be much of a
moneymaker. That loss of revenue will happen slowly and gather momentum
as electronic-presentation technology improves. The wise publisher
could start small: Add some sound bites. Move some graphics. Use
motion, use sound. Get going.
Then, if print publishers decide to adapt to the sweeping tide toward
the "televization" of the Web, if they want a Web site that provides
readers with content that maximizes their on-line information
gathering, then they must tear down the paper curtain that separates
traditional print journalists and broadcast journalists. Hire
journalists who know something about both the Web and multimedia
production. Hire some staffers who know their way around an editing
suite. And be prepared to lay out some cash -- or strike up an alliance
with a local TV station or cable programming provider.
Where can a publisher find those new-journalism staffers? In newsrooms
across the country, even among the crusty old journeymen and women of
journalism, there are seasoned professionals who have experience both
in print and on electronic media. On campuses across the country, there
are many more college students who dream of being Dan Rather or Connie
Chung than students who dream of being Jack Anderson or Erma Bombeck.
Those students crowd into the broadcast courses, learning to write and
produce for a "multi"-medium. The more modern and enlightened
journalism schools are closing the gap between their print and
electronic disciplines to educate these computer- and Web-savvy
students, who will then have both print training and practice, and
electronic-journalism experience.
If print publishers don't make those shifts in thinking and approaching
news-content production and delivery, the traditional broadcast media
will easily capture the online-journalism viewers and run away with the
online-advertising dollars, dollars that may be the only dollars
available when our grandchildren take over.
The way to capture tomorrow's online-journalism viewers (and the
advertising dollars they represent) is to be there, in all media. In
multimedia.
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Originally published by The Journal of Online Publishing, September 1998, and Design, the Journal of the S.
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