I'm supposed to be writing about whether or not I think the web will change the definition of news. This is really hard for me because my gut response is, "Duh, no!"
Back in Journalism 101, we talked about the characteristics of news: timeliness, proximity, conflict, prominence, unusualness, and impact. These things are what news is. These things are what news will always be. End of story, no? News on the web certainly has different characteristics than news on radio or television. It's generally more interactive, more personalized, and more current. But it's still all about timeliness, proximity, conflict, etc. The definition isn't changing, although the execution is.
But then today, the Internet did something really neat. Just as the buzz about the recently discovered National Guard memos exposing George W. Bush's lousy performance increased, a blogger-based buzz started spreading about the fact that these memos are quite possibly fake. Personally, I find the subject of the news simultaneously enraging and deeply depressing. Professionally, the fact that skeptics were able to analyze and publish their findings quickly and publicly enough that it will hopefully jump into mainstream news is pretty awesome. This is the stuff democracy is made of—and it's also an example of the news process expanding a bit from what it used to be. Now this is what timeliness should look like.
Maybe this whole conspiracy theory is just the work of everyday nerdy conspiracy theorists, or maybe this is a case of the skeptics being onto something and having a venue to publish their analysis where a broad audience can read and respond to it. If you consider blogging output to be news, this means news is moving faster than ever, allowing more people than ever to shape and influence the stories in the news. And with the blogger's audience feeding him updates throughout the day, news is becoming a collaborative effort. Cool.
I'll be waiting for the mainstream news (not to mention Kerry's camp) for their response to this one.
Update: The next morning, front page of CNN.com.
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