We are the Future.

As this new millennium progresses, more and more people are relying on the Internet to get their news.  They want reliable information as soon as a story breaks.  They want to be able to give their opinion on news stories and see more media than just a printed news story.  They want to be able to control what they see and what they don't see.  And they want it all for free.

So if everybody can get their news online 24/7 why do news companies continue to print newspapers every morning?  The answer is simple: demographics.  The demographic of people who are reading the printed newspaper is getting older and older while more young people get their news online.  But more importantly, those who read the printed version of a newspaper tend to be local, while the majority of the online audience comes from outside the city of the newspaper.  According to Suzanne Levinson, Director of Site Operations at the Miami Herald, the Herald sells about 400,000 copies of its printed paper to residents of South Florida, but 80% of its online audience is reading from outside the region.  What does this mean for online journalism?  Online news stories need to target a different demographic than their printed counterparts.  The most popular sections of the Miami Herald's website (www.miamiherald.com) are sports (especially coverage of the Miami Dolphins), Latin American coverage, and blogs written by Dave Barry.  All of these sections are unique to the Miami Herald, so readers all over the country turn to the Internet to get this information.  While people come to read these sections specifically, the most popular part of the Miami Herald's website is the comments.  Commenting is unique to online journalism.  Sure, with traditional journalism readers can write letters to the editor and maybe ten get printed in the next day's newspaper, but online journalism allows an infinite amount of readers to give their opinions on any given story.  Readers feel like they're part of the journalism process and their feedback is read not only by the editors at the newspaper, but by online readers all over the world.  What does that say about the future of online journalism?  Reader comment, reader feedback, and readers in control.