Suzanne

WK 4: Online Writing Styles

Online Writing Styles
Richard Craig

Online reporting is different to Old Style Reporting. Compared to online reporting the old style can be seen as stuffy, no-nonsense presenting facts without bias.

The internet has allowed a different style of reporting to emerge. It is more commentary driven, with online reporters enjoying the fact that they can depart from the traditional writing skills.

Even when it comes down the to traditional Journalist Pyramid, this style does not necessarily work for the web, but rather a layering style, where each hyperlink represents another layer to the story.

Where did this style originate? The foundations of this more relaxed opinionated commentary style of writing has developed from the early forms of communication that the internet offered. That is email and chat-room where communicating was a direct, opinion originated style.

What does this new medium mean for writing? How does it effect the consumer?

1. The publishers really need to know their audience and the best way they can serve that audience
2. News is instant, no longer dictated by deadlines, but rather a rolling deadline
3. Constant reporting – updating as the story breaks
4. Providing links to external sources (often written by different authors) so the consumer can at any stage change the narrative – to suit their own personal interest.
5. Consideration of other media that will aid the story
6. Change in economic constraints for publishers, effectively the web has allowed anyone to be a publisher/writer/journalist

The Question of Journalist Integrity
Is it a case of throw it out the window? Although online journalism is a distinctively different style to that of traditional journalism, it has become important to keep the foundations of fact checking and researching that traditional journalism was built on.