Media Column

by LAGAN SEBERT

Toronto’s mixture of ultra-modern design and gritty historic charm was a perfect setting to bring together leaders of online journalism for the 2007 Online News Association conference and awards ceremony. Online journalism is a business constantly reinventing itself. While the conference was a hotbed for innovative ideas and technologies, there was also a lot of talk about traditional journalism ethics.

As daily newspaper circulation decreases in the United States, more people are getting their news online and advertisers are putting more money into online ads. Michael Oreskes, executive editor of the International Herald Tribune, said in his keynote address that he was happy to be at a forward-looking journalism conference. He likened other journalism conventions he had participated in to “attending a wake for someone who’s not quite dead yet.”

While journalists attending the conference seemed hopeful about their trade, they were by no means complacent. In this hyper-digital age, anyone with an Internet connection and a reasonable amount of time can broadcast his or her own version of the news. Based on these realities, Oreskes said that in these times of transition and extreme competition, it is actually the adherence to traditional journalism ethics that will keep the news business alive and healthy.

Some reporters and editors had different views on how journalism ethics could be a business model in itself.

YouTube videos rack up millions of views and Facebook is offering a news feed tailored to personal interests. The explosion of social networking sites has contributed to an overall trend of fragmentation of people’s media consumption. Niche media outlets and user-generated content networks are taking power from mainstream media. While in some ways this is a great egalitarian trend there is also a risk that media pandering to personal interests could produce citizens who are closed off to anything outside their immediate scope of consciousness. The challenge to journalists becomes how to make the relevant interesting and engaging among endless choices?

The Internet offers unique opportunities for storytelling and it seems that journalists are just beginning to tap into the power of this evolving medium. There were a number of success stories and beacons of hope among the award winners at the Online Journalism Awards.

Not Just a Number, a multimedia project by The Oakland Tribune, won two awards in public service. Not Just a Number tells the story of the violent-crime epidemic in Oakland, Calif. in ways only possible through the Internet. The site tells each victim’s story through pictures, videos, interactive features and audio in ways that have inspired community interaction between everyone from high school students to police officers to gang members .

The stories are not organized from top to the bottom; they are placed on a map of Oakland. There are visual images of where murders occurred and visual links to whom these deaths affected. The feature pieces of the puzzle lets the readers engage with hard data on risk enhancing behavior.

Through interactive features and community involvement, the journalists are able to tell every victim’s story in a personal way. This could only be done online, where media is not limited by broadcast time or print space. Similarly, the LA Times created The Homicide Report, a blog dedicated to every murder victim in the LA Area.

The Washington Post OnBeing was awarded special recognition for innovation. OnBeing is a stylish video project that looks into the not-so-everyday stories of people who don’t normally get a chance to tell their stories. From conflicted musings of a 12-year-old about becoming a teenager to a woman’s passionate memories of Martin Luther King Jr., these are stories that wouldn’t make the 6 p.m. news#-#yet they pointedly touch basic human interests.

There was a lot of talk at the conference of databasing as a new way to engage live data and audiences in news. Chicagocrime.org, is the product of Adrian Holovaty, who took public information about criminal activity and built it into a database that connects to Google Maps. Want to know how many people have been mugged on your block and when? Chicago Tribune has incorporated some of the technology into its Web site. Judging by the buzz, many other papers will likely follow suit.

Discovery Channel’s: Everest Beyond the Limit took away an award for outstanding use of digital media. The site arguably brings couch potatoes closer to the outside world than they have ever gone before. With interactive maps, real time “sherpa cams,” interactive games and stunning images this site allows visitors to explore Everest with in new and profound depth.

USA TODAY won an award for overall excellence in Online Journalism. Judges noted that USA TODAY had made a leap from last year, with a complete redesign and an expansion to interactive features.

Internet journalism is at an exciting point in time. It is moving from a medium that simply combines other forms of journalism to a distinct form of communication in itself. Like a young writer, online journalism is still finding its voice.