1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY
1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY
1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY
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Online story construction 131<br />
development, then narrative in a separate chunk to ‘humanize’ the<br />
story. Th<strong>is</strong> separation frees you to adopt different writing styles<br />
tailored to the content. You can even extend th<strong>is</strong> flexibility to other<br />
elements of your storytelling, such as multimedia. Summaries from<br />
the reporter could be used for the audio and video on the linear<br />
kernel, with eye-witness interviews for the ‘human interest’ section<br />
to complement the narrative writing. As Leah Gentry says, you are<br />
able to work with the medium.<br />
All th<strong>is</strong> <strong>is</strong> fine, but how often does it happen? Carole Rich <strong>is</strong><br />
right to call for experimentation. However, the reality <strong>is</strong> that v<strong>is</strong>ion<br />
<strong>is</strong> often the first casualty of the daily grind and with it falls<br />
innovation. The search <strong>is</strong> still on for a viable and reliable revenue<br />
model from <strong>online</strong> publ<strong>is</strong>hing, particularly <strong>online</strong> news. As was<br />
noted in Chapter 1, cutbacks started to kick in 2001, with sites<br />
folding and reductions in editorial staff. As result, the pressures<br />
mitigating against innovation increase daily.<br />
It <strong>is</strong> as important to be pragmatic as it <strong>is</strong> easy to be ideal<strong>is</strong>tic<br />
about the potential and practice of <strong>online</strong> journal<strong>is</strong>m, but we must<br />
also look at the bigger picture and remember what got <strong>online</strong><br />
journal<strong>is</strong>m off the ground in the first place – innovation. What was<br />
once innovatory, for example the combination of multimedia,<br />
interactivity and linkage, <strong>is</strong> now commonplace. If we want the<br />
commonplace to have developed in five years’ time, we must<br />
innovate now.<br />
In the meantime, we can consider what we do have at our<br />
d<strong>is</strong>posal to ass<strong>is</strong>t our digital storytelling. Let us move on to<br />
explore those d<strong>is</strong>tinctive aspects of <strong>online</strong> that go beyond the<br />
writing – immediacy, global reach and multimedia in outline; and<br />
then the real powerhouses of archiving, interactivity and linkage<br />
in more detail.<br />
Leverage those strengths<br />
Transferring from one medium to another can be a salutary<br />
experience for any journal<strong>is</strong>t. The establ<strong>is</strong>hed newspaper reporters<br />
who move to radio or telev<strong>is</strong>ion soon learn what they can take<br />
with them and what they have to leave behind.
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