Beyond breaking news: Online news delivery must change with the consumer

Let me suggest that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, won't be considered a major milestone in the development of online breaking news.

Neither will the Oklahoma City bombing. Nor the death of Princess Diana. Nor the Florida ballot count in the presidential election. Nor that major fire in your city that burned down an entire neighborhood. Nor that downtown shooting that had office workers running out of their building for their lives.

This isn't to say that these real and hypothetical events aren't major breaking news stories -- especially Sept. 11. And this isn't to say that some terrific online work hasn't taken place in covering these and other stories.

The real lesson to be learned from Sept. 11 or from any major breaking news today is not how the news media have changed - we're slow to change - but how the public more routinely goes to the Internet to seek news and information. And there is still a gap between the power of this new technology now in the hands of news consumers and the reporting made available to them from established newsrooms.

Today, an increasing number of individuals have the skills and equipment to go to the Web and search for news. That desire for news is especially acute when something major happens. The Internet provides individuals with alternatives to sitting passively in front of a television screen or with an ear glued to a radio station.

But judging by a quick review of local news sites, most newsrooms continue to cover major breaking news geared to the medium in which they are steeped.

Radio and television interrupt regular programming to broadcast live reports. Television crews scramble to get video. Newspapers cover many angles in an attempt to be thorough in their next-day editions. And, by and large, good reporters, photographers, camera crews, graphic artists and editors will do a terrific job.

But if you can't wait until the next day's newspaper or you miss the radio or television report that had the information you wanted, you're out of luck. If you have Internet access in your office - as many do -- you can go online to see if your local Web site has the latest news. In most cases, you'll still be out of luck.

Once online, the news consumer will find plenty of opinion, commentary and even news provided by a wide range of sources. The amount of breaking news from traditional news "brands" will be limited, however. (The value of news from "traditional" news organizations vs. the myriad news publishers on the net is a different debate.)

The information that newsrooms might provide online is limited, too. Say, for example, there's a huge explosion in your city's downtown. In addition to all of the big questions are more mundane but "important-to-me" questions: What's happening to traffic? What's happening to public transportation? Where are the hospitals to which the injured are being taken? What businesses and buildings were involved?

What is the likelihood that the local newspaper or TV station will have this information online in a timely manner?

To be sure, many more news organizations are making these kinds of efforts, and there are far more examples of good work today than a year ago. Knight Ridder newspapers, for example, have added local breaking news headlines to their sites.

Moreover, it's very difficult to make these kinds of investments during an economic recession that has battered media companies. And changing the infrastructures that serve a particular medium -- be it newspapers or TV and radio broadcast - doesn't happen overnight.

But to learn the lessons of Sept. 11 or of any major breaking news event, let's keep our eye on today's news consumer and note how quickly they are developing news habits and making new demands. That's where we find change.

One area where you will see progress in online reporting on the Sept. 11 anniversary is the inclusion of multimedia by newspaper Web sites. At Knight Ridder, reporters working on a national package recorded their interviews. The audio became part of the multimedia flash packages that combined audio, text and photographs.

Other audio includes Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts reading his post-Sept. 11 column, which garnered a lot of attention. There is also an audio interview with Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry. Best known for his humor, Barry showed a more serious side in his Sept. 11 anniversary assignment and talks about it in an audio interview.

This raises the need for new editing skills and additional training.