By: Carl Sullivan War is a TV event, unless it happens while you're at work -- in which case it becomes a Web event. As the U.S. attack on Iraq began last week, newspaper Web sites, having learned lessons from Sept. 11, 2001, were ready to cover this year's biggest news story during the Internet's prime time, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"We've created a system here that's very flexible and allows us to respond to spikes in traffic," said washingtonpost.com spokesman Don Marshall. If swamped by visitors, the site can outsource the hosting of its high-bandwidth video, which includes live coverage of White House and Pentagon briefings and reports from the Middle East. If technical problems were to arise at a busy moment, washingtonpost.com is prepared to turn off the graphics on the site, including advertisements and multimedia features.
Similar preparations for streamlining have been made at newspaper Web sites across the country, although most are confident they can handle virtually any traffic load. Many newspapers greatly increased their bandwidth and server capacity after 9/11. The night the bombing began, The New York Times on the Web turned off its registration wall, "to get the news out to as many readers as possible, as quickly as possible," said Christine Mohan, spokeswoman for New York Times Digital.
Adding to the traffic burden is all the video that many news sites are offering in an effort to serve at-work users. In some cases, E.W. Scripps Co. newspapers will link to video clips about the war on Web sites owned by Scripps TV stations, saving the newspaper sites from bandwidth drain.
Advertising also can slow down busy sites, and on Thursday both MSNBC.com and CNN.com pulled advertising from their home pages. Most newspaper sites were still running ads Thursday, but some restrictions were in place -- more out of concern for taste than bandwidth. Latimes.com and chicagotribune.com both temporarily suspended all pop-up ads. Washingtonpost.com planned to continue running its pop-under ads, but will review the decision frequently.
Advertisers also were reviewing their online campaigns. Several advertisers on washingtonpost.com decided on Wednesday to pull their ads for 24 or 48 hours once the war started. A few national travel advertisers planned to temporarily suspend their campaigns on Tribune Interactive sites. Some advertisers on NYTimes.com also postponed their campaigns, and some requested to be moved to nonwar areas of the site. "Ninety percent of our online advertisers have not asked for any kind of 'out' clause," said Brigitte Trafford, a spokeswoman for Dow Jones & Co. Inc.
Covering the war online is a challenge for smaller newspapers. "I've always believed that we can't out-CNN CNN.com," said Rob Curley, general manager of World Online, the Web site of the
Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan. Instead, most papers should concentrate on local angles, such as news about hometown troops. Said Curley, "We have to work hard to be the place for great community dialogue."
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