Net News Nips Networks

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 19, 1999 | by Jennifer Harper

The Lewinsky scandal proved to be good business for online news services. Many tradition news outlets are scrambling to attract this new legion of Internet news junkies.

The Internet no longer is a novel way to get that daily news fix. The number of folks turning to the computer for news has tripled in the last three years, according to the Pew Research Center. Net surfers cite convenience, immediacy and the novelty of viable content paired with high-tech gew-gaws.

Most news sites offer consumer help, online polls, live chats, bulletin boards and other amusements to appease visitors. There's even a "prime time" from noon to 4 p.m., notes the research group Jupiter Communications.

Though Internet news has been a presence for a few years, its appeal rose during the Monica Lewinsky scandal -- its titillating nature was great for business. Online traffic doubled and often tripled at Websites such as MSNBC, Fox News Online, CNN.com, Associated Press Online and others. TV networks and weekly newsmagazines scrambled to revamp their own sites to stay competitive.

Lessons were learned: Cyberspace is not immune from good news judgment, and some organizations compromised credibility for the sake of timeliness. The Dallas Morning News, for instance, was forced to offer a humiliating retraction when they ran an unsubstantiated but delicious scandal-related morsel on their site.

New terms were coined. The "accelerated news cycle" meant breaking news was instantly available on Internet and cable news channels alike. Specialty Internet news sites were born, such as the Conservative News Service, billed as "The Right News, Right Now."

Specialty alliances were forged. "I call it the TRI factor -- talk radio-Internet," says radio host Les Kinsolving of WCBM-AM in Baltimore. "The combination of us talking and the immediacy of Internet news means there are no more secrets anymore."

But the Lewinsky matter has evolved into a cultural rather than a news matter. Lewinsky's story essentially has ceased. She now must be regarded as another celebrity rather than a newsmaker. Internet news sites must retool themselves for less frantic days ahead. Many have diversified to snag that elusive, surfing Internet news consumer.

ABC, for example, has announced it will "aggressively" market its online news site with a massive and irreverent advertising campaign, placing promos on everything from New York buses to coffee cups. The ads pair "newsmakers" with puns: images of Fidel Castro with the slogan "Kick back with a Cuban at your desk," Saddam Hussein with "He's available for dictation" and Janet Reno with "Invite her for coffee. See if she finds any grounds."

Undignified? Nah. "We know that a majority of our users come to ABC-news.com during their workday for the most credible and useful news on the Web," says vice president Katherine Dillon. "We wanted to launch a bold advertising campaign that not only reflected and reinforced that behavior but also caught people's attention."

RELATED ARTICLE: Talk Will Set You Free

When Internet gossip Matt Drudge spoke at the National Press Club a few months ago, he observed that the media one day would become a forum for citizen reporters in "an era vibrating with the din of small voices." The din already is under way in the querulous but vibrant world of talk radio, where opinion-mongering has split into scores of specialties, subspecialties and niches of every persuasion.

More than 1,400 radio stations across the country are fueled by talk alone, with some 4,500 talk-show hosts poised to expound on cue. The talk-radio marketplace has become diverse these days -- expanding far beyond tired dogfights between liberals and conservatives -- and that diversity will increase with "Internet radio" powered by software that allows anyone to "broadcast" from his or her own computer.

It's a "difficult -- even painful -- way of life," according to Talkers magazine, an industry publication. The magazine brought this burgeoning population down to scale recently by naming the country's Top 100 radio talk-show hosts.

"I can think of at least 250 people who could be on that list of 100," says publisher Mike Harrison, who adds that the judging panel was determined not to meet "the criteria of some politically correct quota."

Who are the mighty 100? The list includes predictable personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Don Imus, Gordon Liddy and Dr. Laura. But there are scores of regional hosts who extol their specialties in neat sound bites.

Bill Cunningham of WLW in Cincinnati is "conservative and controversial." Tom Gresham offers an "intelligent weekend show about guns and civil liberties" from Natchitoches, La. Selma Schimmel has a "weekly syndicated program for cancer patients" from Sherman Oaks, Calif. Dennis Prager's program on KABC in Los Angeles has a "sensitive, philosophical flavor."

The roster includes computer experts, financial wizards, relationship gurus, family therapists, self-described muckrakers, grass-roots populists, lawyers, psychologists and handymen. There is a "sportsradio shock jock," a "voice of the entrepreneur" and a "queen of Spanish talk."