1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

2 Journalism Online
dropping like flies. The dot rot has truly set in. Eggington
reflects:
I suppose the laugh was on them . . . because what we were
doing at the BBC was what they were doing too. The
difference is, the public service model is supposed to work
that way. The commercial model is not.
That’s why there’s been this market correction. This had to
happen when you had stocks with a capitalization of several
hundred million pounds and the annual turn-over of a
medium-sized pub.
But none of that is affecting the people who are thinking
about how to make journalism work on the Web. In the end,
that’s not a commercial issue as much as an intellectual
challenge. 2
Eggington’s anecdote reflects the setting for this book. But his
optimistic postscript lies closer to the heart of the text. Life in the
e-conomy has become something of a soap opera – a steady diet
of synthetic drama and excitement, complete with predictable
denouements, obvious to all, it appears, except the main characters,
such as those who invested heavily in the technology
stocks.
As a result, the public’s reaction to digital media developments
has yawed like a drunken sailor from hopeless optimism to
excessive gloom and cynicism. In the midst of such instability, it is
difficult to plot a steady course; to settle for the solid advance,
rather than the ‘paradigm shift’.
One minute we are told that mobile Internet technology such as
Wireless Application Protocol (Wap) will revolutionize the way we
live and do business. The next minute it is decided that Wap has
all the qualities of an uncomplimentary word that rhymes with it.
Mobile operators are accused of running ‘ludicrous adverts
(which) have completely over-positioned this new technology and
2 Interview with author, June 2000.