Outing outs online news site failures

Award-winning online journalist Steve Outing has become senior editor at Poynter.org, his move coinciding with the biggest story since the Cuban missile crisis.

Mr Outing, a columnist for editorandpublisher.com, also founded Content-Exchange.com, a resource site for editorial content on the net. He left traditional journalism in 1993 and has since become an online journalism expert.

In his new column on the Poynters site, Outing criticises the way many news sites dealt with the New York terrorist attack.

He said: "Clearly, today's co-ordinated terrorist attacks on the US represent the biggest story of the internet age. And unfortunately, the internet media was not fully prepared for an event of this magnitude."

He also commented on how many sites failed to offer the coverage they could have, and how others failed to deal with the tragedy appropriately.

"An example of getting it wrong is Netscape.com, which posted a World Trade Center crash photo early on, juxtaposed next to an entertainment advert picturing a grinning Tom Cruise," he said.

He also gave some tips on how online journalism can learn from the experience and what it can do to compete with mainstream media next time such a big story breaks:

• Produce continually updated timelines of events and factsheets;

• Create a 'clarifications' page, as much of the news broadcast subsequently will turn out to be incorrect;

• Create email lists, set up temporary discussion forums and hold online chats with experts;

• Create resource pages, where people can go for all sorts of help;

• Offer archive video footage and photo albums.

Outing will continue to write his column for editorandpublisher.com and Content-Exchange.com will be underwritten by Poynters.

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