According to the chapter entitled, “From Broadcast to Internet: Repurposing Content,” the Web combines strengths of both print and electronic media. The Web, however, has changed the way an audience is able to consume and replay the news. Unlike print, there is no “news hole” limited to advertising constraints. And unlike TV, the Web can offer video that can be replayed or rewound (76).
Few TV stations create their own Web sites. Many stations contract through World Now or Internet Broadcasting (IBS). IBS handles Web sites for stations in the largest markets (79). Television Web sites rely on posting a lot of content and replenishing it as often as possible.
The chapter said that most news organization Web sites look the same for three reasons: a small number of people design news media Web sites, the nature of the news is standardized and competition (79). In the competitive world of journalism, the book said that everyone “is constantly looking at what others are doing.”
An “increasingly common” feature of newspaper Web sites is the use of “Web shells,” or, dedicated space on the site to hold special reports, multimedia elements and related information on a specific topic (81). Broadcast stations, however, do not typically use web shells as often as newspaper sites do.
Whether they are told online or on TV, broadcast stories can be essentially th e same (81). However story length is not as constrained online. In an online story, the writer must remove self-references and descriptors that come from ad-libbing and injecting personality. For online text, attributions may go last rather than first, as it would in a newspaper story.
A key element in crafting a Web story is interactivity (82). Online readers are more active than TV viewers, so they will expect to have to do something with the content provided rather than simply viewing it. Another is its presentation, which has to deal with the physical layout and organization of the story online. Stations will post all their top stories together on a main page as opposed to laid out on a page or timed throughout a TV segment.
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