immediacy of online news: journalistic credo under pressure

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Immediacy of online news: Journalistic credo under pressure

Abstract

Using journalistic normative theory as backdrop, this study tests whether the news

cycle of online news differs from that of the traditional paper medium on four

Swedish websites. Further it is investigated if the high speed and continuous flow of

information on the Internet has any impact on the quality at online news. Finally it is

argued that that the speed of which information is published on the Internet will

raise serious questions about the quality, integrity and trustworthiness of the news

product. Findings like these could, if commonly found, lead to a debate about and a

redefinition of journalism in both online and traditional media.

Introduction

The Internet is increasingly becoming an area for a variety of human enterprises and experiences.

With regards to journalism it has been suggested (Deuze & Dimoudi 2002:96) that since 1997

there has been a specific form of journalism, online journalism, taking place there.

When journalism is moving onto the Internet it also mean a new environment that has

different characteristics than the analogue mediums of communication. This shift in environment

has triggered a whole new field of research - online or digital journalism - that investigates

differences and similarities between online and traditional journalism in many aspects. Amongst

the distinctive characteristics of the digital medium compared to analogue mediums, especially

the newspaper, are interactivity, convergence of pictures, moving images, text and sound into one

medium of distribution and, finally, immediacy.

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It has been stated (Massey and Levy 1999) that immediacy might be the most defining

characteristic of online journalism compared to traditional journalism. However, few efforts have

been made to systematically investigate how immediacy impacts the quality of online news and

theorizing and empirical research is virtually non-existent according to Kopper et.al (2000) and

Tumber (2001). First it important to stress that even if studies on immediacy show no results

whatsoever we must have in mind that this field is relatively new both for scholars and journalists

alike and there can be significant variations from one year to another and between different

countries.

On the basis of empirical evidence is reasonable to assume that at least some of the news is

changing. Anecdotal evidence from Hall (2001:109, 2000:390) suggests that news items are

changing and disappearing from websites. Seib (2001:147) demonstrates that news is adjusted

over time. There have been an ‘ad hoc’ study made by Salaverría (2005) on 9/11 where he

concludes that “… these [online] media show an insufficient editorial maturity that occasionally

leads them to commit important mistakes in their news reporting”. Mistakes includes that online

news was publishing false events without publishing corrections either in the online version or

their paper medium.

There is evidence that supports that immediacy have impact on online journalism but there is,

understandably, a scarcity of empirical studies. This paper is an effort to contribute to the

empirical understanding of immediacy in online journalism.

Immediacy of online news

The basic concept of immediacy is relatively straightforward. Immediacy means that there is, in

theory, virtually no lag between when information is received or created at a news producer and

when the information is passed on to the news consumer. This is possible because of two related

features. First, the information is digital and can easily be moulded continuously. Secondly the

information is not distributed, as far as the web is concerned, in the traditional meaning of the

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word. Rather than being pushed out to the audience all at the same time, be it once an hour or

once a day on the web, the audience seeks up a database that then presents the information to

the audience. That means that the information never leaves the producer entirely, unless of

course someone downloads the website, and the information can therefore be worked on

continuously.

This is possible because different modes or patterns of communication are at work. Using

Boudewijk and van Kaams model (McQuail 2002) over different patterns of communication it

can be argued that in traditional media the dominant form of communication has been one of

transmission where the traditional producer dictates what is being presented to the audience and

when it is being presented.

The communication mode describing the situation for websites is labelled consultative

communication1. This is when the producer of information still is controlling what content is

available to the audience but to a lesser extent controls when it is being accessed. This

communication pattern has a lot in common with for instance going to a library.

The shift in communication patterns are central in understanding the concept of immediacy as

it is a underlying foundation for changes in news cycle and the increase in speed with which news

are published.

Shortened news cycle

The news cycle, the predictable and rhythmic pattern when something is published, will most

likely change when news is published on the Internet. For sake of illustration, the paper will

compare online news with traditional newspapers because the difference here will be greater than

for radio and TV news.

A newspaper will typically distribute its news once a day and therefore the news cycle will be

24 hours. The journalist will have a deadline to work against and it is predictable when the 1 There are other modes of communication in Boudewijks and van Kaams model that are at work when people visits websites but those are not central within the immediacy context.

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deadline will be. It is also predictable for the news consumers when the news will be distributed.

After the news is printed and distributed there is no chance of editing the content of the

newspaper. Anything that is printed is being carried over time and space in perhaps millions of

copies. The content will be persistent over time until the last copy of the newspaper is vanished a

long time from the publishing point.

There is an argument that news on the Internet are parasites of traditional news and are

transferred onto the website all at once and once per day. This argument is labelled shovelware

(Merrit and McCombs 2004:63) and there is evidence that supports such a notion (Bardoel

2002:503, Sott 2005:93 and 110). But more recent studies (State of the Media year report

2005) says that less than 30 percent of the news items looks the same all day.

If there is a shovelware effect in this study is to be determined in the empirical evidence but

compared to the papermedium there is in an online environment a possibility to shorten the

news cycle that was much more difficult to achieve before.

The shovelware argument is one side of coin and on the other side it can be argued that the

deadline and predictable news cycle are or will be gone when online journalism has adjusted to

its medium of communication. This notion has supporters amongst several scholars (see for

instance Burnett & Marshall 2003, Hall 2001, Kawamoto 2003 and Scott 2005). It is argued by

Kovach & Rosenstiehl (1999:89) that there is a deadline every minute and that there is now a

twenty-four-minute news cycle (1999:63). Seib notes (2001:142) that the deadline is always

now.

Kovach and Rosenstiehl (1999:32) argues that when there is a continuing deadline there is no

natural point to take a break and summarize what is known at the end of the day). Instead

chances are that there will be a continuous chase for more information on the subject or another

news item. This situation has more reminiscence to live-TV than traditional text medium like

the newspaper. Still even if radio and TV stations broadcast news all the time it differs from

online journalism in two ways.

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First, most of the commercial broadcasting companies have prearranged programming

schedules that they need to follow, websites don’t.

Second, a news story that unfolds in a live setting is just one news story. TV-stations are

experimenting with broadcasting breaking news at the same time as a line about national weather

or financial market is transmitted on the TV-screen. Even if this is more than one story, it is still

a long way from the literally thousands of news stories that are simultaneously available to the

online audience on every online news providers site.

Increased speed

If the news cycle is shortened, that means that news items are published more frequently. It does

not necessarily mean that every news item will receive less attention, there is still at least a

theoretical possibility that every news item gets at much attention as before and that the

difference is that every news item is published when its done. This is however not a probable

scenario given the production context of news. So from the logic of shortened news cycle follows

that there is likelihood that news item will receive less attention and processing before it is

published due to the shorter time span in online news compared to their paper counterparts.

That can result in, claims Kovach and Rosenstiehl (1999:51), that the speed of news production

increases and moves towards an immediacy of publishing anything you have as soon as possible.

At least when there are no or slim chances of having an exclusive, if you have that you’ll probably

save the story for the parent medium.

There will probably be an ever-continuing flow of information and news appears on websites

as they happen (Hall 2001:55). In short it will always be suitable to publish what you have,

however short or incomplete the news is. This in turn should force journalists and news

consumers alike to rethink what news are. Instead of being a finished product, online news has to

be considered as first takes or as drafts that are very likeably to change (Hall 2001:55 and Seib

2001:149).

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To summarize things so far: online journalism has the specific characteristic of immediacy.

This is dependent on a specific form of communication, consultation, which marks

communication on the Internet and on the digitalization of information. Information never has

to leave the producer and can be accessed at will by news consumers. As a consequence news

producers can publish news literally every second and continue to work on them after they have

been published. This can lead to a shortened news cycle and an increased speed in news

production.

Journalistic credo

The characteristic of immediacy is described and it is dependent on the medium of

communication, the Internet, and it will influence how news is published. At the same time news

published on the Internet must relate to the journalistic ideals and norms.

Without doubt, there will be many different perspectives on what constitutes good

journalism, what journalistic ideals are and should be and to what degree they are at work in

modern journalism. This analysis utilizes the normative press concepts laid out in Kovach and

Rosenstiehl (2001) to establish a theoretical framework.

This is an effort to establish an analytical tool to use with immediacy of news rather then

define what journalism really is. The focus will be on the journalistic credo rather than on details

and different facets of it.

Objectivity

One of the most distinguished features of modern journalism is that of objectivity. That has now

always been the case. However stable journalistic ideals might seem, they have been changing

over the years and striving for ‘objectivity’ has not always been the norm or even desirable

(Schudson 1978).

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The idea of pure objectivity may be difficult to fulfil given the constraints and different

production filters that is at work whenever organized professional journalism content is created

(Shoemaker and Reese 1996). In spite of these difficulties there is still a widespread desire that

journalism should strive for objectivity. There are ethical codes of conduct for journalists. Deuze

(2005:447) argues that journalists must for instance be objective and have autonomy or in other

words have a disinterested pursuit of truth as Kovach and Rosenstiehl notes (2001:42).

Journalism should contribute to a shared relevance states Merrit and McCombs (2004).

According to Kovach and Rosenstiehl (2001) journalisms essence is verification. These criterias

are important to follow for journalism because according to Kovach and Rosenstiehl (2001:11)

“Journalism provides something unique to a culture – independent, reliable, accurate and

comprehensive information that citizens require to be free”. The same authors states (1999:23)

“Accuracy is certainly the first goal of journalism, but it not the only one. Credibility and clarity

are important as well”. There are different rituals to confirm and show that information coming

from journalists should be viewed differently than that coming from different kinds of persuaders.

When journalism fails and complaints are raised against journalists or journalism as a whole

the basis of criticism is the lack of objectivity. That it is partial, unfair or outright lies. Very few

would accuse commercials or propaganda of the same things because we expect nothing less from

it. When the infamous Jayson Blair was caught fabricating his material in different ways the

outcry was because he had broken the code of journalistic conduct and the objectivity rituals.

Journalisms central position in modern democracies is dependent on peoples need for

information. Very few, if any, operators other than the news media have so far been able to

deliver that information on a daily basis.

At the same time, it is important to stress that there are several definitions of democracy and

each one has different normative implications for journalism (Strömbäck 2005). But all in all the

debate surrounding journalistic objectivity gravitates around an assumption and desire where

news publishers, whoever they might be, are supposed to deliver true and fair journalistic content

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to citizens so they can make informed decisions as members of a, to some extent, deliberative

democracy.

If journalism fails it not only a problem for journalism in itself, it is also a problem for

democracy. Kovach & Rosenstiehl (2001:11) puts it this way “At stake is whether, as citizens,

we have access to independent information that makes it possible for us to take part in governing

ourselves”. Journalism might be far from perfect but there are few if any alternatives out there

that have the same ambition.

Immediacy as a part of journalistic ideology

While objectivity is central in journalism, immediacy also plays a significant part. Comparing

scientists and journalists different conceptions of time Reed (2001) notes that scientists have a

much slower pace than journalists due to the short deadlines and immediacy of daily journalistic

work. To be first with a news item, to beat the competition, is a part in the journalistic ideology

and is both an essentialized value and problematized side effect of news work (Deuze 2005).

Immediacy is a well-recognised aspect of newsworthiness and creates a picture of news workers as

being dedicated professional (Jaworski et.al. 2004).

Not only is immediacy a characteristic of the digital medium, it also corresponds very well

with the journalistic self-view. This could make journalists embracing the new technology more

than for instance the interactivity feature that would be historically more unaccustomed.

Conflicting logics and strategies to cope with it

The tension between the objectivity ideal and the lack of resources to fulfil it is not a new idea. It

has, however, been raised again, now in an online environment. If journalism is supposed to

deliver independent, reliable, accurate and comprehensive information, how is that achieved in

an environment that moves literally at the speed of light? How can the integrity of news be

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upheld in an online environment? To this fundamental question four different overlapping

strategies of answers can be noted amongst scholars.

The first and most common answer could be summarized as: Maintaining the integrity of news

in a high speed environment is not possible, therefore online journalism is not journalism. There is a

fundamental conflict between speed and critical reflection in general (Virilio 1995 and Armitage

2000:146ff). Time is therefore essential to do good journalism and if there is no time to process

information there can be no journalism. Instead we have a kind of voyeurism (Seib 2001:44)

because of the lack of analysis, processing and information put in an understandable context.

Kovach and Rosenstiehl puts out a warning that “A never-ending news cycle makes journalism

less complete” (1999:6). Kovach and Rosenstiehl are by no means alone with this standpoint and

scholars like Hall (2000 and 2001), Kopper et.al (2000), Merrit and McCombs (2004), Pavlik

(2000), Seib (2001) and have also raised concern about this issue.

The second answer is: Online journalism is a different kind of journalism. Rather then arguing

that online journalism is a completely different beast it could be viewed as an offshoot from

traditional journalism. There are tendencies amongst professional journalists, both those working

in an online environment and those that don’t, to view online journalism as different. Thus

suggesting that different norms can be used guiding tools in an online environment but that it

needs to be separated from traditional journalism. There has been research done (Deuze &

Dimoudi 2002:93, Paulussen 2004) on online journalists and their view on journalism.

According to these studies (se also Salaverría 2005:79) online journalists sees their role,

compared to other journalists, to disseminate information as fast as possible and to reach the

biggest possible audience. They are less inclined to critically examine politics and economics and

to give audience analysis of complex problems. Online journalists do, however, keep interactivity

with the audience in high regards and this has been interpreted (Deuze 1999:373, Deuze &

Dimoudi 2002:95) as a will to do ”public” or ”community” journalism. Because of the speed of

Internet online news consumers and producers will be, as mentioned earlier, to view online news

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as different drafts that are highly likely to change but that the same rules don’t apply to print

media.

The third answer is: This is not a problem, on the contrary this will redefine journalism to different

and better standards. Not all scholars are criticizing the immediacy of online news entirely. On the

contrary it can be argued (Gunter 2003:68) that immediacy of online news is one of the major

advantages over print media just because they can update stories and inform the public about

events long before print media would be able to. Arguing that reality is fluid and dynamic, Pavlik

(2001:21) states that finally there is a medium that is capable of conveying the essence of reality.

He further argues that audiences aren’t willing to wait for developments in a breaking story and

they want to know right now. If traditional news producers aren’t going to provide that the

audience will seek the information otherwise. Furthermore the advantage of being first is small on

the Internet because anyone can copy you within seconds from that your news are released,

scoops will only remain exclusive for seconds (Kovach and Rosenstiehl 1999:8). Deriving from

this logic, Matheson (2004) argues that, competition amongst news producers could instead be

based on “knowing more, knowing better and knowing more comprehensively, and knowing in as

much depth or extent as readers would wish” (Matheson 2004:458).

The overarching logic in this strategy is that there is no point in demanding ideals fitted for a

paper medium in an online environment. Because the environment changes so must also the

normative guidelines. From that follows that over time the online standards will probably spill

over to the traditional medium because there will be problems with having double standards for

journalism especially when the same trademark like The New York Times does both online and

print journalism. In the end traditional journalism will have to adjust, or at least relate, to the

distinctive features of online journalism. Slowly the online medium is forcing journalism as a

whole to define a new identity (Robinson 2006:79). Especially the interactivity feature can be

considered a journalistic core value in the future (Hall 2001:44). Interactivity undermine the ‘we

write, you read’ dogma has have characterized modern journalism (Deuze 2003:220). Journalism

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has to adopt to this (Pavlik 2001:136) because it is not only crucial for journalistic survival but

will also serve democracy better.

Finally there is also a fourth argument: There is no speed of light in online news so there can be no

immediacy problem. This is essentially the shovelware argument put in another context. If the

parent medium just transfers its regular news items once a day we basically have print media on

an electronic screen. If this is the scenario there is little to be worried about besides what worries

scholars about journalism in general.

Theoretically speaking immediacy has raised some questions. Some scholars means it is

essentially a bad thing other means it is good. Others are indifferent. In either case, empirical

evidence is in short supply. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to test whether immediacy has

an impact in online news.

Hypothesises

The first hypothesis is to establish if there is more than one version of a news item. Assuming that

when the technological straightjacket of the paper medium is gone, the news will be published

before they are finished.

Hypothesis 1: There will be more than one version in a majority of the online news items.

It is important that this occurs in a large portion of the news because that would suggest that is a

more universal phenomenon rather than isolated events.

When that hypothesis is established, hypothesises number two will be tested. The second

hypothesis will be based on the assumption that when a news item is rushed out, there will be a

need to correct or change the first versions. This will lead to that the description of events will

differ over time thus changing the meaning and understanding of the news item.

Hypothesis 2: There will be news where the meaning of the news changes.

Method

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The websites that was chosen for the study are the Swedish websites aftonbladet.se, dn.se,

expressen.se and svd.se. These four sites have the national leading newspapers as the parent

medium. Aftonbladet.se and expressen.se stems from tabloids and dn.se and svd.se stems from

morning papers.

The general methodological approach has been one of non-probability selection. The

empirical material consists of fifteen different news items gathered, with two exceptions, from the

four websites during 2004 and 2005. Each of these consists of an event that has become news in

three or four of the websites. The events were manually downloaded every time they were

updated on the website2. The websites was monitored generally from 09.30 to 15.30 to see if the

same event was published on three or four websites. If that was the case, or if it were likely that

would be the case, I monitored the event and refreshed the websites with an interval of one

minute to see if it the content had changed. If there was a change, the event was downloaded and

compared to earlier versions. Sometimes the update interval was longer then one minute due to

updates and downloading that took longer than a minute. The continuous monitoring stopped at

17.00. At 23.00 and at 09.00 the following morning I went back to the event, under the

circumstance that it was still present, and checked for more updates.

The specific news was selected on basis that the news had to be published on the top of at

least one website’s front page. The top is reserved for news with high newsworthiness and would

therefore likely be a breaking news and would have a bigger chance of being updated. If, in future

studies, all news on a websites front page are to be included, chances are that the update

frequency will decrease.

More than one version online?

2 There are different computer programs that can download websites. A variety of those were tested but none of the available programs could produce enough reliable results for the purposes of this study.

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A number of news items are represented in table 1. It should be made clear that the news items

in themselves are not interesting but they are included in the table to keep the different news

items separated.

Table 1 News item Aftonbladet.se Expressen.se Dn.se Svd.se Iraqi bomb 1 (Bagdad)

12 versions 6 versions 5 versions 6 versions

Murder in Gothenburg


Demonstrators killed in Thailand


Iraqi bomb 2 (al-Hilla)


Bomb attack on president of Kosovo


Voting in EU parliament


Appeal in Anna Lindh murder case


Religious murder

3 versions 5 versions 1 version 2 versions

Climbing accident kills two people


Attack on Israeli prime minister in Hungary


Car crash in Norwegian tunnel


Plane crash in Russia


Raid against Internet paedophiles

3 versions Doesn’t occur as news

3 versions 5 versions

Iraqi bomb 3 (Baquba)


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Police hunt for robbers

1 version 3 versions 4 versions Doesn’t occur as news

Table 1 shows 15 different news items and how many different versions of them that has been published on respective website.

Out of 58 possible cases 56 news have more than one version (15 news items multiplied with 4

sites minus the 2 cases that didn’t make the main page of svd.se and expressen.se). A new version

of the news item is considered when text, pictures, graphics, author or editing changes. This

includes for instance new headlines, correcting spelling errors and reediting the text. While not

very controversial it shows that content in online journalism are continuous work in progress and

not shovelled over from the parent medium once a day.

It should be noted that many of these news items are telegrams delivered from news bureaus,

and when a new telegram is sent out it simply replaces the old. Many of the news texts on the

different websites are identical due to they are using the same news bureau. Nevertheless, there

are different versions and a few of the news, notably local Swedish news, have original reporting.

Aftonbladet.se (15 news) has on average 7.0 versions per story, dn.se (15 news) has 4.5

versions per story, expressen.se (14 news) has 5.7 versions and svd.se (14 news) has 3.9 versions.

Aftonbladet.se has most changes with 23 different versions on one occasion. Out of 58 possible

cases only 2 news items have one version. When it is established that there are different versions

– are there any evidence of change in meaning?

Change of meaning

In general there is not a problem with having different versions of a news story. If immediacy is

used in correspondence with the current journalistic credo, a short version or a ‘heads up’ could

be posted on the website. More and more detailed information could then be added as the story

unfolds. This would be unproblematic and would draw little or no attention from scholars.

Instead it is more interesting to investigate what divides the different versions of the same news

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items. Note that the changes in meaning are deviations and inconsistencies from previous

versions - not adding information or building a context.

To investigate this, two different questions are posed: The first is “Does the meaning of news

change?” and the second is “Does news disappear from web sites?”.

In print journalism there is usually a consistent main theme answering the questions of who,

when, how, what and why. If the speed of online news has an impact on news, the main theme

should to some extent vary between different versions of news. Table 2 presents what news has a

change in meaning.

Table 2 News item Aftonbladet.se Expressen.se Dn.se Svd.se Iraqi bomb 1 (Bagdad)

X X X X

Murder in Gothenburg

X X X X

Demonstrators killed in Thailand

X X X X

Iraqi bomb 2 (al-Hilla)

X X X X

Bomb attack on president of Kosovo

X X X

Voting in EU parliament

X

Appeal in Anna Lindh murder case

X X

Religious murder

X Only one version no change possible

Climbing accident kills two people

X X X X

Attack on Israeli prime minister in

X X

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Hungary Car crash in Norwegian tunnel

Plane crash in Russia

X X X X

Raid against Internet paedophiles

X Doesn’t occur as news

X X

Iraqi bomb 3 (Baquba)

X

Police hunt for robbers

Only one version no change possible

X Doesn’t occur as news

Table 2. The different ‘X’ marks what news item that has change in meaning on the different websites.

Out of all possible cases there are changing of meaning in 36 of them. This is in a clear majority

of the news item collected but it is again vital to stress that these news was selected because of a

high probability to change. A larger sample would probably have a slighter proportion of

changing news. Nevertheless there are changes but they need to be divided into smaller and

deeper aspects.

Small changes

Small changes are when the main theme is basically the same but details deviates over time in

regards to answering the questions of who, when, how, what and why. Spell correcting, editing or

rearranging text is not included in small changes. The small changes will be illustrated with three

examples.

Avalanche turns into climbing accident. In 15th of April 2004 two men dies in Swedish

mountains. This is first reported on all four news sites as a avalanche accident and warnings

about the avalanche risk in general are published and links are made to previous articles about

avalanches. Eventually after a couple of hours it turns out that the men died in a climbing

accident and started the avalanche when the fell off the mountain. Material in the news articles

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that mentions avalanches are taken away in the later versions and on dn.se replaced with a

completely different text.

Number of dead in Russian plane crash. 16th of March 2005 a plane crashes in Russia. First

reports on the websites states that all 52 passengers died in the plane crash. Gradually the

passengers come alive and when the final version of the news is published only 29 passengers are

reported to be dead and there are 23 survivors of which 10 are badly wounded.

Raid against paedophiles. On 16th of March 2005 it is reported that police forces around the

world has made synchronized raid against suspected paedophiles and arrested a number of

persons. At first it is reported that suspects has been apprehended in Sweden also. But after just

eight minutes that information disappears from the websites.

The three examples all illustrate how the basic story still stay the same but there are changes

in details. That is not the situation with all cases.

Deeper changes

A large change is when the news story changes completely or when the frame in which the event

has been presented changes. Three examples will illustrate the larger changes.

Demonstration in Thailand. 24th October 2004 there is a demonstration in Thailand and 84

people dies. The first reports on the websites says that demonstrators were choked when chaos

somehow erupted in the crowd. Gradually the reports tells that there have been a clash between

demonstrators and police and the final versions states that the 84 demonstrators died in police

busses and lorries where they were literally piled on each other after being arrested. The blame of

the deaths of the demonstrators changes during the course of the day and thus shifts the

understanding of the event dramatically.

Iraqi bomb 1 (Bagdad). The event takes place 1st June 2004. The first reports on the websites

suggests that bombs have exploded near U.S. headquarters in Bagdad and up to ten people can

have been killed. A little bit later there are ‘at least’ 25 lethal casualties and the explosion site is

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moved to a headquarter for a Kurdish party and the explosions has been reduced to one. There

are also reports from a named witness that guards outside the party headquarters opened fire

with automatic weapons after the explosions killing innocent civilians in the vicinity. Later the

same day, an anonymous ‘American officer’ states that only three, all security guards outside the

party headquarters, people were killed. When this source makes its entry, all the other sources go

away and with them goes the information they have provided. In the last versions that day on the

websites, apart from aftonbladet.se, the American officers also disappears but the information

provided stays. At the end of the day, it is very difficult to asses what really, especially from

distance, happened due to the big variation in different versions of the news and sources that has

disappeared. “How many died?”, “What killed them?” and “Where was the explosion?” are

questions that remains to be answered.

Israeli prime minister. This event dates April 4th 2004. The news reports starts with revealing

that an assassination attempt on the Israeli prime minister has been fended off. According to the

first reports a ‘terrorist group’ has been uncovered and three ‘Arabs’ have been taken into

custody. On some of the websites there are also hyperlinks to different kind of international

terrorism. After a while, the story changes completely on dn.se and svd.se (it stays the same on

the other two websites). Now it is one Hungarian individual of Palestinian heritage that has

planned an attack on a Holocaust museum in Budapest. Beginning with an Arab terrorist plot to

kill the Israeli president, it transfers to a lone madman trying to blow up a museum.

The meaning of news can change in a significant way in an online environment while it would

stay the same in print although it could change in radio and TV. This is not to say that one

persistent theme is more ‘true’ or that print journalism gets it more right than online journalism.

But it will be very difficult to uphold the ‘we deliver the one and true version of events’

journalistic idea when the audience is served conflicting description of events within the same

trademark. Truth, in essence a monolithic affair, will be hard to sell when it’s ambiguous.

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Disappearing news?

Disappearing news is changing in meaning due to the fact that one minute something is stated

and the other it is not. As Hall (2001:109) mentioned news can disappear from websites. To see

if this was common in the material news was visited a couple of days after they was first

published.

Out of 58 possible cases news did disappear on four occasions. Two of the disappearing news

was about ‘Iraqi bomb 3 (Baquba)’ and it was on aftonbladet.se and svd.se it disappeared. Other

news that disappeared was ‘Demonstrators killed in Thailand’ (expressen.se) and ‘Voting in the

EU parliament’ (svd.se).

Compared to changes in the meaning of news, this is a rather uncommon practise although it

clearly happens more than one time so it is not isolated events. Disappearing of news could be

because a number of reasons for the news to disappear: The event didn’t happen. It is a cover-up

of the websites bad journalism. The news is deemed not newsworthy enough to stay on the

website. Someone of the editorial staff made a mistake and it went off the website. Regardless

what the reason is, it is impossible for a news consumer to appreciate the reason unless the news

producer informs why and that doesn’t happen in any of the cases in the material.

There are faulty articles in print journalism also but they are the exception and are sometimes

presented in a special section of the newspaper. The results from this study shows that it can be

faulty or dubious news on a more regular basis in an online environment.

Limitations of the study

The results clearly support the hypothesises although one must be careful in generalizing from

limited material. To be certain further research has to be performed, but for breaking news on

Swedish newspapers websites the shovelware label doesn’t seem to hold. One also need to keep

in mind that broadcast media and more similar to online journalism than print journalism so a

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comparison of those entities would produce different results. Digital media does, however, differ

significantly from broadcast media as described earlier.

Discussion

In this material it is obvious that immediacy is alive and well on Swedish newspapers’ online

news sites. Further, it is also clear that immediacy of online journalism has an impact on how

news stories are told and in the accuracy of news. The suggestion (Hall 2001:55 and Seib

2001:149) of looking at online news as different drafts is a good idea. Problems occurs if it

doesn’t become anything more than a draft. Will it ever become good enough to be considered a

final version? Although it is not self-evident that the news are getting more objective over time.

The news about the bomb in Bagdad seems to get more opaque as the news is updated. News

could theoretically as well as changing for the better change to conform to different agendas.

Kovach and Rosenstiehl (2001:11) state that “Journalism provides something unique to a

culture – independent, reliable, accurate and comprehensive information that citizens require to

be free”. The finding from this study sure raises questions about the reliability and accuracy of

information in online news. Does that make us, the citizens, less free or should the findings be

viewed in a different way?

It has been suggested (Robinson 2006:80) that it is time to re-examine traditional normative

theory, as it appears in Kovach & Rosenstiehl (2001), in the light of an online environment.

Online journalists (Deuze & Dimoudi 2002:93, Paulussen 2004 and Salaverría 2005:79) sees

their role to disseminate information as fast as possible and if this is an acceptable normative

standpoint they succeed rather well at it and they use online news main advantage immediacy

(Gunter 2003:68) rather well. If reality is fluid and dynamic (Pavlik 2001:21) the content in

these online news thoroughly gets that across.

One can also argue that the ‘journalism’ part of online journalism should be reviewed in the

light of an online environment. The findings also support the idea that there is little or no time

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to process the information before it is served to the audience given the fact that there are

conflicting description of events on a regular basis in the material. This supports Seibs (2001:44)

argument that it is a kind of voyeurism. The high speed and different versions in the empirical

study suggests that the deadline is always a deadline (Kovach and Rosenstiehl 1999:86, Seib

2001:46) and that there is an ongoing news cycle that could make journalism less complete

(Kovach and Rosenstiehl 1999:6). Although it might change over time, there is no finding in this

material that supports the expectation that online media competes with “knowing more,

knowing better and knowing more comprehensively, and knowing in as much depth or extent as

readers would wish” (Matheson 2004:458).

The empirical study only challenges one of the four arguments – the shovelware argument.

The other three argument is impossible to repudiate because they all take-off from different

normative perspectives. The empirical study only tells us how things are, not how to judge them.

Regardless of which normative route one prefers, it is clear that traditional normative

journalistic theory and the online reality do not correspond very well in these cases. Online

journalism challenges without doubt both traditional journalistic norms and scholars. Will it

revolutionize journalism in itself or how we look at journalism? Probably not, but chances are

that it will slightly change the centre of gravity for journalism.

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immediacy of online news: journalistic credo under pressure

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