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Journalist’s Tradein any business relationship. Gettingthis firm to negotiate a contract, forexample, was a major undertaking. Sowas convincing a technocrat that aninvoice for more than $70,000 containingjust five words to describe the workbeing billed for that handsome sum fellshort of acceptable business practice.And then there is Cold Fusion. Ithought Cold Fusion was somethingfollowers of the Reverend Sun MyungMoon tried to sell to unwary travelersat airports in the 1980’s. Turns out it’sa name for software used to managebig, complex, database-driven Websites. It should have been easy to makeit become the engine that drives oursite. But it isn’t, and the techies don’tknow why.“We’re meeting with the vendor andwe’re sure we can work it out,” theysaid.That assurance was months ago.Must be a long meeting.Still, our Web site works or most ofit does most of the time. Our readersdon’t complain. Most love us for whatwe’re publishing. They don’t know theideas we have in our heads that wecan’t execute. They don’t know all thefeatures we had hoped to add andhaven’t been able to. It’s as though wehad designed a 747, but the plane wetake off in every day is more like a 707.It gets you where you want to go, butnot in quite the style or comfort weimagined our visitors would be travelingin or thought we paid for.The lesson I’ve drawn from all theagony of the last nine months? Journalismin cyberspace may have solved distributionproblems: The report arrivesevery day no matter the weather, andit’s never necessary to retrieve it fromthe bushes where the boy heaved it.But imposing standards is a full-timejob. Techies, like the Web itself, arevalue neutral. They promise more thanthey deliver and don’t always graspwhy some things we ask for are importantin upholding the tenets of goodjournalism. Everything costs more thanthey said it would.Nothing is as easy as you think itought to be.And without vigilance, the news standardson which all of this ought to bebuilt can start to slip away. ■Edward M. Fouhy is Executive Directorof the Pew Center on the Statesand Editor of stateline.org, the dailynews policy Web site published bythe Center. He held top executivepositions at CBS, ABC and NBC.Is ‘New Media’ Really New?For news agency reporters, technology changes but not how the job is done.By Kevin NobletI’m soaking in the tub at my home inSantiago, Chile, when my wife handsme the portable phone. It’s thebroadcast desk of the Associated Presscalling, wanting some Q-and-A for radio.I wonder if the echo from theyellow wall tiles and glass shower dooris noticeable and will spoil my report,but I decide to stay put. I need to cleanup and, just as much, I need the rest.“Testing. Testing. Does this soundOK?” I ask the producer. He’s sitting ina recording booth in Washington, D.C.I don’t tell him exactly where I am. Ijust try not to slosh around too much.“Just great.”“Really?”“Really. It’s great. Let’s start….”That was back in 1988, when I wasthe Associated Press’s Bureau Chief inChile, where the regime of Gen.Augusto Pinochet was surrendering[News agencies] still remain, in some senses,in the shadows, easy to overlook despite ourkey role in the traditional news industry—and our equally important role in the socalledNew Media.power to civilians in a riveting politicalprocess with lots of national angst anda fair amount of tear gas. My primaryduty was putting out AP’s written report,an around-the-clock affair sincethe agency provides stories not just tothousands of American newspapers butto thousands more papers, televisionand radio stations elsewhere aroundthe world. From Santiago we did this intwo languages, English and Spanish. Ialso oversaw our photographic service,directing our Chilean photographers,often writing their captions and transmittingtheir photos. Sometimes I’deven make prints for them and, on rareoccasions, take a photo myself. Andsince the AP also provided sound toradio stations, I helped out with that.Back then, nobody talked aboutmultimedia, or new media. Thoseterms, a hot currency now in the indus-Nieman Reports / Fall 1999 59