Print media v the Internet

In newspaper commentaries on the decline/ stagnation of newspapers, and the rise of Internet, you don't tend to hear much about the Internet's greatest strength - its capacity to act as an outlet for frank opinion, or it's greatest weakness - its lack of appeal to advertisers.

For example, in a Press opinion column from last week "There's no business like news business," (Saturday, May 24), Martin Van Beynen says the Internet is competing strongly with print media for advertising, but later in the piece claims newspapers are struggling to get any revenue from their online versions.

To the extent that newspapers have been able to survive the various threats posed by radio, television and the Internet, I'm willing to hazard a guess it's because they've got a competitive advertising niche. Television advertising is too expensive, radio advertising is too brief, and both are extremely annoying and intrusive for viewers and listeners. Internet advertising holds potential, and is similar in many respects to print advertising, but at the present time, it's pretty hard to see how it can be made to pay.

By contrast, there are numerous advantages to newspaper advertising: it's cheap to produce, not particularly intrusive, can be viewed at any time, can include lots of important details, doesn't require a computer, and can be combined with useful information in the form of advertorials. Community newspaper advertising is particularly competitive, since 'communities' can be produced very cheaply and delivered to local homes for free, providing users will access to information on local products and services in a convenient form they can view anytime.

But since businesses are reluctant to pay big money for Internet advertising, it's difficult for bloggers and independent websites to produce the kind of hard news that is the bread and butter of newspapers. Hard news requires contacts, legwork, making lots of toll calls, and accessing user- pays databases, which is hardly likely to appeal to a lone blogger working for free or the occasional donation.

So instead of trying to compete in the field of hard news, which requires too much time and resources, bloggers are striking at the weak underbelly of print journalism - commentary. While, it requires training, resources and certification to produce good hard news, good commentary depends more on intelligence, talent, courage and subject knowledge - qualities which can just as easily be found in an anonymous layman with a high IQ or a curious mind, than an over-worked professional journalist constrained by numerous editorial requirements and pressing deadlines.

Not only that, but the amateur blogger has the advantage of total flexibility in regard to time spend on a post and the frequency of his or her posting.

Most newspaper commentators are obliged to produce articles of a particular size to a regular and inflexible deadline, and almost invariably quality and originality decline over time. Thus the flexible nature of blogging means that people who have jobs in other fields, which may pay much higher than journalism, can potentially produce refreshing, quality posts on an occasional basis, and blow away their stale and frequently under-paid, newspaper competitors.

Print journalists argue that the anonymity of blogging encourages a lot of immature and malicious posting, and they do have a point - quantity and shock value, rather than quality is the norm in blogosphere. However, the sheer volume and diversity of posts means that the best of the Internet (provided people can find it) is more than a match for the stale output of most newspaper opinion columns.