1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

34 Journalism Online
David Randall (1999) argues that there are only two forms of
journalism – good and bad. He places creativity, originality and a
questioning mind at the heart of good journalism:
Good journalists challenge the conventional inside their
offices as well as outside them. They have ideas, they ask
questions of traditional methods and want to try new ones,
they say: ‘Why don’t we do this? Or that?’. They hanker after
subjects that newspapers normally do not touch, and new
ways of tackling ones that they do. Whenever they hear the
phrase ‘This is how we always do things’, they grow restless.
They do not accept the time-honoured divisions between
news and features. They hate stories written to a formula.
They reject the assumption that certain subjects and ideas
are ‘beyond’ their readers. They believe that good journalism
is universal in every sense.
Lazy journalists put news in boxes – categories such as crime,
courts, council, sport and ‘softer’ items such as fashion or music.
Such journalists do not reach out to their readers to find out what
interests them, to see if these boxes have any relevance to their
lives. This approach looks increasingly redundant within the userdriven
online medium. Readers can make their own boxes if they
want. The online journalist can give these users the raw materials,
not just a finished product.
However, there is evidence that some readers still want the
daily digest, their news selected and packaged by the journalist.
Online can, and does, accommodate both approaches.
Whether you are providing building blocks of information for
the user or a finished article, here are some suggestions for
maintaining a fresh outlook:
ask yourself whether you know who you are writing for;
before you embark on any story, ask yourself whether it will
engage the reader;
try to cover new ground (e.g. a new topic area) every week;
at least once a month, try something experimental both in form