In the end, however, computer networks will make the press better informed, not worse. Via Lycos, for example, a searching tool on the Web, I can track down files written by just the right person to interview or find background information that someone archived from the relevant newsgroup. Besides, who says that all interviews are confrontational? Often e-mail is just right, and I can always use the telephone to fill in gaps. “I used to ask, ‘What’s your fax number?’ at the end of a phone interview,” says a magazine writer named Peggy Noonan.[[4.9]] “Now I also ask, ‘What’s your e-mail address’ because it’s often much faster to post a question or send a draft for approval via e-mail than by another means.” Some journalists might object to showing drafts to sources. But Noonan clearly sees the networks as a godsend for other purposes as well.
Another believer is Arik Hesseldahl, a young reporter with the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello who, like many journalists of his generation, grew accustomed to the technology in college. “Remember that flesh-eating bug scare a few months ago?” he said. “I got in touch with a doctor in England who debunked all the rumors and media hype, which is what it was—hype. Just today I am looking for an expert on nuclear fuel reprocessing equipment who is untainted by the Department of Energy and the rest of the federal nuke bureaucracy. Already I’ve gotten five suggestions for experts.”
I myself see other advantages for people in the pulped-wood world; via the Net I don’t just approach editors—I hear from them out of the blue when they like my postings. Other freelancers have also benefited. Steven Sander Ross, a professor at Columbia University, uses the Net to communicate with European magazines that pay better than those in the States. Just as the Net creates global markets for florists and sellers of teddy bears, it multiplies opportunities for the best writers. That is true for newspaper and magazine writers now and will be increasingly true for authors of books. Mind you, there is a downside, too. The Net may actually hurt the worst writers as they face more competition, whether from professionals across the planet or from the free material that Netfolks share with each other.
Here are three case histories that should be of interest to writers, editors, publishers, and the rest of the cosmos:
• Case History 1. The News & Observer has used the Internet not only to reach the denizens but also to get existing readers and advertisers on the Net. In an era when so many greedsters hope to charge outrageous fees to consumers for online information, the N & O is hoping that ads will pay much or even most of the freight.
• Case History 2. Time Warner, as noted, is putting magazines and book excerpts on the Internet, and it’s doing so in ways befitting the medium. Many of the same concepts carry over from online newspapers, which is why this section and the next will be much shorter than Case History 1. In fact, so far, an N & O-style business model seems to be influencing Time at least somewhat.
• Case History 3. Laura Fillmore runs an online bookstore that not only sells books but gives them away on the Internet. She even used the Net to promote a pulped-wood book that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Fillmore’s ideas are significant because she is working hard to reconcile publishers’ needs with those of society at large, and I commend one of her business models as an alternative to pay-per-read gouges. The ultimate answer, in my own opinion, is a national digital library and a program to drive down the cost of book-friendly hardware. Using this approach—a mix of editorial and technical wizardry to add to the value of plain text—good publishers would flourish. Readers and writers would come out ahead, too.
Finally, I’ll offer an update on the N & O and other publications on the Internet. When Frank Daniels described the Net as “unorganized” and “unruly,” he might also have been talking about certain trends in his own industry. A surprising twist unfolded in the story of the N & O.
Newspapers on the Net:
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