A Report on SAJA's Panel on "Future of Business Journalism
in the Internet Era"

Panelists:
Dave Churbuck, editor-in-chief, Forbes Digital Tool; Emily Church, NY bureau chief, CBS Marketwatch; Marc Frons, editor, SmartMoney Interactive; Dave Kansas, editor-in-chief, TheStreet.com; Raju Narisetti, technology reporter, The Wall Street Journal. Moderator: O.P. Malik, staff writer, Forbes Digital Tool

By Mukul Pandya
(Mukul--a former managing editor of Business News New Jersey--now edits a new publication for the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.)

NEW YORK, JULY 1998: When AT&T and TCI announced their proposed merger last month, Marc Frons, editor of SmartMoney Interactive, asked one of his reporters to pursue a certain angle on that story. But before the article could be reported and written, TheStreet.com, another business news site, had already put up its version of the AT&T-TCI story on its site, making the same point. SmartMoney immediately had to skid in its tracks and find a new slant.

Frons narrated this incident at a South Asian Journalists Association panel discussion on "Future of Business Journalism in the Internet Era," last month at Lancers Restaurant in New York City. "The danger we face is whether we will sacrifice depth for immediacy and accuracy for speed," Frons said.

Other speakers shared that concern over the challenge that the emergence of the Internet poses to business journalism. They included David Churbuck, editor-in-chief of Forbes Digital Tool; Emily Church, New York bureau chief of CBS Marketwatch; Dave Kansas, editor-in-chief of TheStreet.com; and Raju Narisetti, technology reporter of The Wall Street Journal. O.P. Malik, an editor and reporter at Forbes Digital Tool, moderated the discussion.

The question of ensuring accuracy came up repeatedly, in part because U.S. journalism has just been stung by organizations like CNN, Time magazine and the Cincinnati Inquirer publicly retracting hard-hitting stories. The panelists said that the pace of publishing on the Web leaves little time for fact-checking. The perception that new media journalists are less accurate than their counterparts in print or television also deprives them of access to information. For example, the Janus mutual fund does not yet allow new media journalists to report on its meetings because of such fears.

Still, according to Kansas, TheStreet.com takes errors seriously. "We believe that mistakes could put us out of business," he said. To minimize errors, TheStreet.com has recently hired more editors. It has also introduced a corrections section on its Web site.

Part of the discussion focused on the sort of content that seems to work best on the Internet. Churbuck noted that the Web makes a "deadly reading medium." He tends to use the Internet for focused research, "much like the telephone," he said. "Our emphasis is on databases that will answer questions. Our readers seem to want to read mostly about financial and technical news." Frons agreed. He said that SmartMoney Interactive focuses on stories about personal and consumer finance issues, such as retirement planning, mortgages, and so on. At the same time, his publication tries to use the Internet's potential to engage readers in ways that print or television cannot. For example, "we took our worksheets and charts and made them interactive," he said.

Narisetti noted that one of the Internet's chief advantages is that "you can keep going down to greater degrees of depth." Successful Web sites are increasingly building brand loyalty by allowing users to personalize content, he added. "Some 85% of Wall Street Journal Interactive’s readers do that," he said.

Writing business stories on the Internet calls for specific skills on reporters' and editors' part, the panelists said. Reporters must be good at using the Web for their own research. They must also get to the point of the story quickly--the Web is not the right medium for leisurely, anecdotal leads. Editors, too, must favor sharper, clearer headlines over clever but more ambiguous ones. According to Church, wire service and television journalists, who are used to covering news in real time, find it easier to adapt to the Internet.

Readers on the Web are hard-pressed for time, and they can be tough and demanding, the panelists noted. If they are dissatisfied with a story, they communicate that instantly. As a rule, readers seem to prefer stories that are 700 to 800 words long. In addition, trend stories don’t seem to get much response.

Commenting on the future of business journalism in the Internet age, the panelists ended by making five points: First, the big variable is broadband. While audio and video delivery on the Web stinks at present, it will get much better.

Second, the trend toward Internet sites trying to position themselves as so- called portals—-or starting points--on the Web will become more pronounced.

Third, a lot of splintering is evident on the Internet, and the key is for Web sites to differentiate themselves.

Fourth, high-bandwidth content will be crucial to attract readers in the future.

And finally, journalism will evolve and adapt to the Internet as it did to radio and television, but some fundamental principles—accuracy, clarity and balance—will always remain. -30-

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