Wednesday 29 August 2001

Pic of the day: An eyewitness managed to catch this picture of the recent troll invasion in Hickorydale. 'It was terrible' says our source. 'They cut the city garrison down to the last man, killed all shamans and declared that henceforth our temple would be dedicated to the worship of Cutie.' The trolls have later been seen moving north. (Screenshot: Master of Magic.)

News on the Net

Like their American counterparts, Norwegian newspapers and broadcasting corporations have free Internet services. These were supposed to be financed by advertising; but they never turned a profit. Even when the "dot.com" upstarts spent a lot of (borrowed) money to advertise on the Net, this was not enough to turn a profit from advertising. Right now, the trickle from advertising is far from enough to cover the most basic costs. And the international recession hasn't even reached Norway yet.

It is no surprise then that some heavy cost-cutting is coming. So far no major players have dared to close down their online news completely. Even though it runs at a loss, the public relations backlash of closing down would be horrible. Apart from losing face, they may lose offline readers who protest with their money. It is a sad but well known fact that people who have got something for free, get angry when the gifts end. So the papers and broadcasters continue to maintain an online presence, but they cut in the staff. They cut a lot. What will this mean?

One way to make up for it is to just reprint news from the old desk, articles from the newspaper or manuscripts from the radio news. This doesn't sound like a big loss to me. I am not so convinced that online readers are looking for something different ... except perhaps that we are looking for things that relate to the Internet, while other readers are less interested in such news. I don't think there is a need to have two independent news desks, really.

Another, less comforting, possibility is stealing the competitors' news. Rewriting may be necessary, but it is still cheaper than actually looking for new stuff. We may end up with virtually identical news regardless of what source we get it from. An effective monopoly. I don't like that. But of course, this may lead some people to do something. Will I be one of them? I wonder.

***

I do write a bit of commentary already, and it is quite possible that I would write more if I felt there was a need for it. But I could not possibly compete with mass media on bringing the latest news fastest. I don't listen to rumors, and I don't prowl around town looking for exciting things to happen. Certainly this is not the place to look for news, and will never be. Unless you mean news about me. :)

What I do envision is a kind of semi-official "Amateur News of the World" website, with each piece of news indexed by such qualities as timeliness, depth, geographic location, directness (1st hand experience, 2nd hand, rumor). So you could for instance search for news from Norway, then the South Coast, then Kristiansand. (Or bookmark a shortcut.) At any one level you may choose to go read the latest news, or eyewitness accounts, or background info. (The actual text may even be stored locally, with only links in the central site, though this would have its drawbacks too.)

I would possibly contribute, but my "news" would only be found in the "in depth" section with some editorial commentary, and possibly once in a blue moon some local news that were not covered elsewhere.

Of course, there is an obvious problem with this vision: Some people would write lies or twisted truths in order to promote their own ideas, or just out of a sick sense of humor. (It sure happens already on the Net.) "Muslim rebels burn church in Kristiansand" may be pretty easy to detect as a bluff by anyone in Scandinavia, but may look quite plausible to most international readers. (And sadly, it will probably be more plausible for every passing year. But that's another story.)

One way to overcome this may be by allowing comments or ratings, where readers may object or verify a story. Of course, this would still be vulnerable to a sufficiently well organized campaign, depending on how simple you made the rating system.

***

But the fact remains that we cannot necessarily trust our sources today, either. I've occasionally bought tabloid newspaper when they had stories that I knew something about, and the writing was almost without exception sloppy and filled with rumors, including outright lies. That's one reason I normally don't buy tabloid newspapers. There is typically a core of truth, but it is anybody's guess where that ends and the rumors start. Often the only way to get a reasonably clear picture is to buy two disagreeing papers and see what they agree on. Which is often not much.

And most humans don't even do that. Most humans choose one brand of truth and chomp down on it the way a newborn kangaroo larvae swallows the teat. How often do you see a socialist read a conservative paper, or a pagan listen to a christian radio station? (Or the other way around.) Sometimes I wonder if I and my closest relatives are the only humans in the world that seek out alternative news. I know that as a kid I would sometimes sit (often along with a brother) and listen through the static of our old radio to the news from Moscow or Köln (Cologne) for news that we would never hear on the government radio monopoly here in Norway. That time is over now, the monopoly dead. And I don't ever want it back.