The digital age has created an entirely new medium for journalists. Just as they did during the earliest days of radio and television, journalists explore this new medium, learning how to find and present the facts in cyberspace.

A century and a half ago, covering international news was straightforward: wait for a ship to arrive from overseas, interview the passengers, then run as fast as possible back to the newsroom and try to beat the competition to print. Communications between countries involved physical presence. A reporter literally had to be there to hear the news and had to get back to the newsroom to file.

Journalism has changed dramatically since then, as technology, starting with the telegraph and telephone, has made it possible to find out about events without actually being there.

The Internet, of course, makes it possible to peek into many places without that physical presence, and while that is a boon to journalists and their audiences alike, it also carries certain risks.

The Internet connects uncounted computers around the world, making it possible for an elementary school student in Akron, Ohio, to read files on a university's server in Berne, Switzerland, or a journalist in Tokyo to see the latest news release on a government file server in Washington.

This makes the Internet an unparalleled research and reporting tool. A reporter today can, with a few minutes of searching on the World Wide Web, find information that would have taken hours of expensive long-distance telephone calls just a decade ago.

In addition, the Web has made it possible to interview someone without actually having a conversation. If a news source can't be reached by telephone, he or she can always be e-mailed.

Interviewing someone on paper isn't new, of course -- Mark Twain famously told The Associated Press by telegram in 1897 that "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" -- but in today's world, the question and response can be exchanged in minutes, not the hours required for hand-delivery of a telegram, or the days it takes for an exchange to occur through the mails.

All this convenience has its drawbacks. How does a reporter know that the person receiving or answering the e-mail is the person they purport to be? There's no voice to recognize, no face to see -- only an e-mail address, which the reporter may have obtained from a colleague, from a Web site, or from a news release.

The same problem arises when a reporter or researcher goes to a Web site for the first time. All the person sees is what the people who created the site want to be seen. So, for example, a person sitting in his garage could create a site that purports to represent a giant corporation. Because the reporter sees nothing more than the site -- after all, the whole idea of the Web is that they don't have to physically be there -- he or she has no way of knowing whether the corporation has one employee or a thousand.

In 1996, a site with the URL "www.dole96.org" looked, at first glance, like the official site of Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole. A casual observer would not have noticed that it was, in fact, a parody site -- surely not something the Dole campaign would have chosen to put on the Web itself. While no one can be certain of the motives of the author of that particular site, the use of misinformation to influence voters is nothing new -- political history is full of examples of "dirty tricks" that rely on hiding the identity of the author. The Web raises the possibility of anonymous troublemaking to new heights because it provides so few obvious clues to the identity of a site's proprietor.

The Web might be used to subvert the democratic process, or to promote a freer society. During the political upheaval that eventually led to the downfall of Yugoslavia's President Slobodan Milosevic, the independent station B-92 took on a new Internet identity, B2-92, to keep information flowing after the government seized its radio and television studios.

From political debates to the investigation of airline crashes, Internet hoaxes have made their way into mainstream news reports, potentially damaging the reputation of the reporters and certainly misleading the public. During a 2000 election debate in the state of New York, the moderator asked candidates Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio about their views of "Bill 602P," which was described as a proposal for the U.S. Postal Service to impose a five-cent tax on every e-mail sent on the Internet. Both Clinton and Lazio voiced strong opposition to such a tax. But there is no such bill. The television station that sponsored the debate says the question was received via e-mail in response to a public solicitation for ideas. The question made it to the debate even though the Postal Service had sent out an advisory in May 1999 saying that the bill was fictional.

This is not to say that everything on the Web is untrustworthy -- or even that a majority of sites are. But it does mean that, with more information available to the general public (and journalists) than at any time in human history, the skills that journalists practice -- fact-checking, identifying and qualifying their sources of information, and displaying a healthy skepticism about appearances -- are more important than ever.

Edward R. Murrow once said that "a loud voice which reaches from coast to coast is not necessarily uttering truths more profound than those that may be heard in the classroom, the bar, or country store," an idea that clearly applies to the Internet. In an age of ubiquitous information, the integrity of the information assumes central importance. Consumers need to sort fact from gossip, and want to know that they can trust what they see. They will rely more heavily than ever on the journalistic practices of news organizations such as The Associated Press to identify sources of information and to verify facts.

Paradoxically, this also means that "being there" to cover news stories is more valuable than ever because of the premium put on having rock-solid facts. Few companies can afford to invest in in-person news coverage, but those who do provide a vital service to Web consumers. And without the costs of newsprint, without the time limitations of television and radio, journalists on the Web are free to present those facts in greater detail than ever.

What's more, the Web's point-and-click format makes it possible to present this depth in "layers." If a reader wants more depth, links are provided to sidebar stories, biographies of people quoted in the story, and transcripts of events. As digital technology progresses, viewers will be able to see the video of events as well as read the transcripts.

News sites even provide links to newsmaker sites, enabling readers to see for themselves, in great depth, the information provided by the people covered in the story, unfiltered by journalists.

This has transformational implications for news consumers and the journalists who serve them.

Despite its depth and extensive use of text and still photographs, Web journalism is not newspaper journalism. Even though it uses audio and video, and reports information in real time, Web journalism isn't broadcast journalism, either. It's something in between.

On the Web, the consumer is in control of how much depth he or she sees on a story, and whether the story is "experienced" through audio or video, "described" by a reporter's prose, or both. It's like a newspaper on steroids -- just as a reader can decide which stories to read, in what order, a Web viewer decides which stories to read and which links to click on. With so many choices, each consumer experiences each story in his or her own way.

How will all of this choice affect the news consumption habits of the public? It's too early for anything conclusive, but a June 2000 study by the Pew Research Center asked Americans who regularly get news online what kinds of news they seek when they log on. World news ranked fifth on the list, at 45 percent, behind weather, science and health, technology, and business news. Political news ranked eighth, being sought by 39 percent of those who regularly get news online.¹ Web viewers are clearly taking advantage of the ability to target specific kinds of information.

The biggest, most-visited Internet sites have links to general news coverage, giving consumers the opportunity to navigate through the top stories or click down to specific topics. There are, of course, editors for these information pages, people who make decisions about what stories to display most prominently (just like the lead in a newspaper or on a newscast), how much detail to put in, and what multimedia elements to link to each story. Most important, Web editors must bring to their sites the same journalistic standards of accuracy and objectivity that they bring to newspapers and broadcast stations. In a sense, that makes editing a Web site more difficult than editing a newspaper or a newscast, since the same high standards must be applied to the depth of a newspaper with the speed of a television or radio station.

With all of this work on the part of journalists -- in-person reporting; gathering video, audio, and still photos; making graphics; verifying facts; and applying professional news judgment and standards of accuracy and objectivity -- newsgathering companies are making significant investments in Web journalism. The technology makes their work available to everyone. But the same technology also makes it possible for unscrupulous Web sites and other media outlets to misappropriate the results of a competitor's original work. It is possible for someone at home in an American suburb or a flat in a European city to make a Web site resemble a legitimate news site by swiping stories from others.

This, of course, is illegal, and harms the newsgathering organizations that make the investment to send reporters to cover stories and to check facts. But this sort of cybertheft is hard to police.

That is why copyright notices, and specific licenses regulating how information on the Internet may be used, are so important. Web viewers often think that, if they can see something, they can use it. Before downloading a photo or sound bite or article, the copyright terms -- so easy to ignore -- should be read and respected.

The consumer as editor, the use of technology to misinform, the need to protect intellectual property: it is surely a complicated world for today's journalists. The Internet is a powerful new reporting tool, giving reporters easy access to detailed information on the full range of human knowledge. The Web puts that power in the hands of the audience, too, coupling the blessing of availability with the curse of overwhelming volume.

One hundred fifty years ago, most newspaper readers couldn't get to that ship bringing news from overseas, so they needed journalists to do it for them. Today's news consumer can go directly to the source behind a news story. But even in the Internet age, journalists do more than bring information to the public. We've gone from an age of too little information to an age of overload. With all of the information now at the user's fingertips, Web viewers need context, someone to verify facts and identify sources, to make sure all sides of the story are told. The newsroom of the future needs to be better than ever at good old-fashioned journalism.