Sorry, Brock, but you’d better get used to it. After months of hype, last week Microsoft launched its new online service, The Microsoft Network. Among its features: a news division run by a dozen or so Microsoft scribes. And Bill Gates isn’t the only one vying to become an Internet News Mogul and gain control of millions of dollars in subscription fees and ad revenue that could come with the title. In July, Delphi, the online service owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and MCI Communications, brought in Anthea Disney, editor-in-chief of TV Guide, to retool its offerings. In just six weeks she’s doubled the staff of reporters to 60 and promised to create an innovative new form of cyberjournalism. This blurring line between the writing and disseminating of online news has media critics chattering on the Internet and penning articles in journalism reviews. Their fear: that online upstarts will become competitors with traditional news organizations, and that their lack of journalistic experience will lead to lax ethics. Predicts Columbia journalism professor Stephen Isaacs: “They will come to control the news business.”
That may be going overboard, but the goal of Microsoft and its online kin are the same as all media enterprises: to publish enough good “content” to attract fee-paying customers, and then to lure in advertisers who will pay for access to subscribers’ screens. Gates wants to own all the content he can; that’s why he’s negotiating with Ted Turner for digital rights to CNN and his film library. So far, says market researcher Gary Arlen, “nobody really knows how to make money” with online news, which up to now has consisted of repackaged stories from wire services like Reuters and electronic versions of magazines (including NEWSWEEK). Gates’s and Murdoch’s entries change the equation, since they both have histories of making money at everything they do. Conspiracy theorists predict they could run stories puffing up their companies’ products, or commit the journalistic sin of disguising advertising as news. You’ll be reading a story about a disaster in Greece, suggests one critic, and a few clicks later you’ll be signed up for a week at a nearby resort. Other observers predict they’ll just run subpar newsrooms that are short on investigative reporting and long on schlock.
Much of the fear mongering stems from the fact that no one knows Microsoft’s intentions-including Microsoft. “You will never see us hiring reporters to write stories,” Gates told The Wall Street Journal last week. Meanwhile, a company spokeswoman was telling NEWSWEEK that Microsoft would hire freelance reporters to write about special events such as the upcoming Women’s Conference. Sources say Gates is looking to hire a big-name editor, and all its plans are fuzzy until then. But even inside Microsoft, there’s fear that bosses might make journalists toe the company line when writing or editing stories. “There’s anxiety about whether the news division will have integrity,” says a reporter who interviewed for a job there. No ethical lapses popped up in the outfit’s first hours of operation-it served mostly regurgitated wire-service stories. But its crisp graphics, photos and links to discussion groups put it on par with online’s Big Three: Prodigy, CompuServe and America Online.
Murdoch’s foray into online journalism is drawing fewer critics–after all, he already owns newspapers, magazines and the Fox TV network. But the changes at Delphi show he’s serious about becoming a cybermogul. When new editor Anthea Disney signed on this summer, outsiders expected her to resuscitate the boring Internet-access provider by creating a Prodigy-style service that would repackage content from Murdoch’s media empire. Instead, Delphi is abandoning its old mission and setting up a site on the World Wide Web, the multimedia portion of the Internet. It’s free for now, but Delphi is pondering an a la carte fee arrangement, where instead of paying $9.95 a month, users might pay 50 cents to view each story.
‘My mom says’: Delphi’s Disney promises to use the site to create “something that is a new kind of journalism.” Among her visions: interactive novels, in which well-known writers will pen the first page and subscribers will fill in the rest. Last week’s offerings were more modest, but they’re still innovative compared with sliced-and-diced wire stories. For the launch of Windows 95, Delphi’s journalists interviewed customers at computer stores; one reporter wrote about his mom’s opinion of the new operating system. This week the staff moves into a new newsroom, and they will hit the streets with digital cameras to download audio and video stories onto the Web. Says Delphi associate producer Jennifer Pirtle: “It’s traditional journalism with all new tools.”
No one can tell if these new cyberscribes pose a real threat to the Old Media. For now, many journalism professors-usually the First Amendment’s most idealistic defenders–will cheer for anyone who hires graduates in an industry rife with layoffs. For the best view of the future, look to John Callan, the Microsoft editor whose e-mail began the controversy. He finally got onto that private e-mail list, though he’s been quiet so far. But that’s no guarantee he–or his employer–will be quiet for long.
