By: Steve Outing Last week's terror attacks on the U.S. were -- and continue to be -- a monumental challenge for all media. For the newest news medium, the Internet, the attacks themselves and the "declaration of war" against terrorism are clearly the biggest story to break in its brief history. (The Oklahoma City bombing pales in comparison.)
How well equipped is the online news industry to deal with such epic events? Let's consider that question carefully.
Bandwidth hits the wallThe first thing we need to consider is the nature of the technology of the Internet. On the morning of Sept. 11, after the first jetliner hit the World Trade Center, Internet media took a body blow, too. Millions of people tried to get information from the biggest national news sites in the U.S., but were turned away because the sites' servers couldn't cope with the traffic load. On what should have been the Internet media's biggest day ever, the infrastructure failed and the online audience was forced to return to traditional media -- mostly television news.
A
report issued late last week by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life project concluded that during the week of the terrorism attacks, the Internet played a role as a supplementary medium. (81% of Americans got most of their information on the terror attacks from TV; 11% from radio; and 3% from online sources.) Those online numbers could have been higher if major news sites had accommodated the initial demand.
Some commentators have suggested that this signifies the unsuitability of the Internet to serve as a mass news medium. When a story gets too big, available bandwidth will get sucked up. In that respect, the Internet is closer to newspapers than television. Newspapers have a finite press run, and must print more if demand spikes over the normal press run. TV, on the other hand, broadcasts one signal -- and millions more viewers than is typical can pick up big-story coverage.
This isn't a network infrastructure problem, really. In last week's mad rush of traffic, the central "pipes" of the Internet held up fine. It was individual Web sites that couldn't cope. MSNBC.com, for instance, on Tuesday had as many as 400,000 people hitting its pages
simultaneously. CNN.com saw 162 million page views on the day of the attacks; typical is 14 million.
My hope is that the next time a story this big breaks (and a follow-up event to Tuesday's kick-off is likely, soon), national news Web sites will be better prepared technically. (Even local news sites need to be ready for an onslaught. It was common even for them to see traffic boosts of 5-10 times normal after Tuesday's attacks.) Last week, most of the big news sites coped eventually by adding servers and bandwidth, and slimming down Web pages. Next time, that needs to happen right away so online sites don't again lose traffic to TV. The Web can be a major breaking-news medium -- it's especially suited for reaching people when they are at work, who may not have TV available -- but Web media need to be better prepared.
Not a good time for this to happenIt's unfortunate (as of course is the entire terrorist tragedy) that the biggest news story of the Internet age hit now. With the media industry as a whole in a bad advertising slump, and online media particularly hard hit and staffed minimally compared to at the height of the dot-com boom, the economic impact of the attacks could deal a savage blow.
What we saw last week were the television networks swearing off advertising for several days, losing hundreds of millions of dollars collectively. Newspapers put out expensive special editions and saw a slip in advertising during the height of the crisis. News Web sites bore the brunt and expense of huge traffic spikes, which sent their bandwidth costs soaring; and they eliminated advertising for a time. No one in mainstream news media came out well financially in the short term. (It can be argued that the Internet news traffic spikes of the last week will result in site usage levels settling back down to a level much higher than before Sept. 11 -- and that potentially will increase advertising revenues for news sites.)
What's worrisome is that for news companies, the expense of covering last week's events (and subsequent developments in the months ahead) on the Web -- already weakened by the economy and lack of an adequate industry business model -- will create pressures that could weaken or even kill news Web sites. Just when online news has reached its biggest audience ever, news companies could find that they can't sustain a high level of online news.
What's a news executive to do? Look at the usage of online news last week, for it reinforces the importance of online news media. It is especially important now for newspaper companies not to step back from commitment to the Internet. As the Pew report noted, hardly anyone relied on newspapers for the bulk of their immediate news as events broke in New York and Washington, D.C., last week. Web sites represented newspapers' competitive entry into a story that was way too fast to wait for printing presses to roll.
Despite the expense, newspaper publishers must continue to provide quality online news coverage. Now, especially now, is not the time to make further online staff cutbacks; indeed, there's justification for adding online editorial help. And newspapers should continue to work on finding a workable business model to sustain their Internet operations.
The expense of operating online news sites that will withstand a big story like last week's will dictate company-wide business models. Last week points to the need for news companies to better integrate new-media and traditional-media sides of the business. It well may be that most cross-media companies can no longer afford the expense of an independent online division that can't pull its own weight. An online division with the wherewithal to adequately cover a story like last week's is a necessity; it will require the support of and integration with the larger news entity.
The look of last week's coverageI spent a good deal of time last week poring over online coverage of the terrorist attacks and aftermath. Frankly, what I saw could mostly be described as the "shovelware" approach to the story. Newspaper sites, in particular, became primarily the immediate printing presses required for newspaper companies to reach the public with breaking news at the same time as television news.
What I didn't see a lot of was coverage that was unique to the online medium. There were bulletins and longer text articles; there were photo galleries and video clips; there were infographics (some using animation which helped convey the information more concisely). That's all well and good, and it should be part of any news site's coverage of the terror campaign. Where I think online media has fallen short in the week since the attacks is in creating content and services that take advantage of what the Internet can do and other media cannot.
In the months ahead, as the story plays out, there will be plenty of opportunity for news sites to play their coverage to the medium. For example:
Emphasize public discussion. As high usage of news site discussion forums demonstrated (ABCNews.com saw several million messages posted to its forums in the last week, for example), people want and need to talk about last week's events. News sites can facilitate this need by providing online forums that emphasize intelligent discourse. That means monitoring what's said, and removing posts and posters who contribute vitriolic, racist, or hateful words.
News sites also can invite public participation in live online chats and multi-day "roundtable" online discussions. They can invite experts -- on terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, aviation safety, dealing with grief, explaining terrorism to children, etc. -- to lead these online events, where they answer public questions.
Create useful online resources. The Web is great at making things simpler. It's easier to search a Web database for a delayed flight than it is to phone an over-busy airline reservations desk. It's easier to contribute money via a Web page than to write a check and mail it. News sites can examine the needs of their users -- families and friends of victims, rescue workers, air travelers, etc. -- and create services that will benefit them. For instance, a site might work with a blood bank to set up an online reservation system, so that people don't have to wait in line to give blood.
Remember the victims. The depth that's possible on the Web creates opportunities to commemorate the lives of those lost in last week's attacks. Many of the victims at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and on the four flights that crashed are from around the U.S. and the world. News sites can create memorials to those from their local area who died, publishing biographical information, photos, and letting family and friends post remembrances of the victims. This is the kind of thing that can't be done in other media, but at which the Internet excels.
Go wirelessNot a lot has been mentioned about wireless news' role in the terror story, but it's potentially significant. Last week we heard from people who were in airplanes or at airports at the time of the World Trade Center attacks. Those in U.S. airports lost their main breaking-news source when CNN Airport Network television sets were turned off -- because airlines and airports don't like their customers to see things like commercial jetliners being crashed into buildings.
Some passengers who carry wireless-equipped PDAs (Palm Pilots, et al) were able to get breaking headlines, and share the news with other passengers. I even picked up reports of passengers sitting on airplanes on taxiways doing the same thing.
News organizations should pay more attention to providing their breaking reports to wireless devices. They will proliferate in the coming years, and they provide a means to reach an audience that previously would have been unreachable.
Other recent columnsIn case you missed recent
Stop The Presses!, here are links to the last few columns:
Stopping Unauthorized Alterations Of Web Sites, Wednesday, Aug. 29
Spam Fighters Block Legit E-mail, Wednesday, Aug. 15
Publishers Should Open Creativity Faucets, Wednesday, July 25
A Whack on the Head for Online Media, Wednesday, July 11
Audiences Aren't Deserting the Web, Wednesday, June 27
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