1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

134 Journalism Online
Immediacy
Global reach
Radio and rolling television news programmes pride themselves
on their immediacy. Yet they do not have the flexibility of online.
As television is a linear medium, rolling news channels have to
repeat a great deal of material in order to keep providing the latest
summary and updates. For the person who wants an instant
update, the difference between rolling news and online is like the
difference between jumping on a passing bus or flagging down a
taxi. The bus gets you there in the end, but you take in a lot of
other scenery enroute.
However, if online news operations have the potential to be direct
and immediate, they do not always exploit it. Newspapers in particular
require an organizational and cultural shift to take advantage of
the immediacy of online. The rhythm of a daily newspaper office,
with its peaks and troughs, does not provide the continuity required
for consistent online news provision. You cannot run such a service
if most members of your editorial team are winding down by midafternoon.
It requires organizational change.
Cultural barriers also limit the potential for immediacy. The
tension between holding or breaking stories online before they
make the paper is still apparent for many online newspapers.
Immediacy is a big factor in online journalism, but it is not as
simple as turning on a tap. As Bob Eggington, the launch and
project director for BBC News online, put it:
Keeping a big, up-to-date news site going is a massive task
and is harder than working in any of the established media,
not least because it’s always live. You print something and it
stays there. But you’ve got to keep the site up-to-date and it’s
a very difficult job. 9
All major news organizations deal in world news. They attempt,
however superficially, to have a global perspective, either in their
world news section or integrated within their main news agenda
9 Interview with author, June 2000.