It is unlikely that anyone associated with the introduction and implementation of the Internet could have anticipated the long-term consequences on business, social activity, political activity and news media. Even the definition of what is and is not journalism, and who is-or is not-a journalist, has come into question. This research considers the effects of the Internet on the news media from the standpoints of content, business, and participants.
Traditional news media includes television news, radio, and print media-newspapers and news magazines. When the cable industry gained popularity in the early 1980s, the 24-hour news channel came into being; this changed the expectation of both broadcasters and consumers of news who increasingly came to expect up-to-the minute access to important news stories. The Iranian hostage crises, which gave rise to Nightline, also changed the public's expectation as to what would be included in a news program. Over time, 24-hour news channels found that they needed increased amounts of content in order to fill their schedule in an environment where consumers could use their remotes to click to the competition if a story was not interesting. This also shifted the emphasis of the stories that were covered and how they were covered with an emphasis on sensational stories (Bergman n.p.).
News outlets today use the Internet as an additional way to reach consumers, and media companies have expanded into several types of media in many cases. Thus the same stories that appear in a printed version of the New York Times will also appear on the company's Web site; however, the stories on the Web site can be updated more than in a printed newspaper. Other Internet companies, such as Yahoo and AOL, buy news stories and feeds from traditional news outlets such as the New York Times, the Associated Press, ABC News and the BBC (Mayberry 2).
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