Bringing People Closer to the News

Brandweek, Oct 2, 2000 by Merrill Brown

As we at MSNBC.com enter our fifth year as an Internet news organization, it is clearer than ever that the Internet is not only redefining news, it's changing viewing patterns, creating new methods of storytelling and, most importantly, re-engaging people in the world of public affairs.

Back in our early, "first generation" days of Internet news, online services learned how to redistribute wire copy and other third-party content, and newspapers and other publications learned how to take their print efforts online. Now, before I go to work I can scan the next day's European papers online, and before I go to bed I can look at the next morning's papers from the East Coast online. This accomplishment, however, is vastly underappreciated since we already take it for granted that we can read newspapers and major magazines from the comforts of our homes and offices.

We are now closing out what I call the second generation of Internet news, which has been defined as original Internet newsgathering and production. Sites like ours, as well as those of many television news organizations and the print outlets, now use the extraordinary capabilities of Internet software to publish around the clock, creating valuable applications, streaming audio and video and news "communities."

Most significantly, these elements have been integrated into an experience of extraordinary value for news consumers. Consumers in the workplace--an enormous new market for news--can now get up-to-the-minute information. The creation of this new medium is also changing the way TV news and print organizations worldwide think about their products. No one who's producing an evening newscast can possibly believe that they'll succeed by following the old headline formula. Now every last headline, stock quote and ball score is online long before the end of the working day. And the numbers of people who see them are breathtaking.

According to our internal data, MSNBC.com is seen on the busiest news days by more than three million people, an audience vastly larger than the circulation of any print daily in the country. Combine that audience with that of the top 10 online news sites and you have a number far greater than the audience for national television newscasts. In addition, the audiences for our video and audio streams are as large as those for a cable TV network, and the amount of e-mail sent on any normal day by our audiences to the writers and producers of our highest-profile work is larger than the mail a print reporter for a national daily receives over many months. And all this is happening at a time when only about half the nation's homes have personal computers, handheld Internet access is in its infancy and high-speed access at home remains a relatively small slice of the media universe.

The year 2000 marks the beginning of the third generation of Internet news, a generation of new high-speed and handheld appliances that will merge these new technologies in a fast, seamless way. Improved interactive applications will create an entirely new integrated news experience that will serve to engage consumers. Video clips and entire programs will be streaming and on demand, as will expanded and interactive personalized news.

This third generation of Internet news is about to make history. The passive newscast and the hours-old newspaper are being replaced by fresh, refocused products that use technology to bring people closer to the news, to educate, inform and entertain them. Taped and live streams, already appearing on MSNBC.com, will proliferate, allowing audiences with specialized interests to watch hearings, press conferences, interviews and events at their convenience. And they'll do so with very little effort thanks to high-speed Internet access at home and at work.

But the third generation of Internet news is not just about reinvigorating journalism. It's also an opportunity to engage the next generation of news consumers in the worlds of news and public affairs. And for those of us who work in Internet news, it's a chance to be engaged with our users, day by day, hour by hour, as we invent the new kinds of storytelling tools we have been yearning for all along.

Merrill Brown is editor in chief of MSNBC.com.