Charting New Terrain   

Continued from page one.

PRIVACY Does your site have a privacy policy? Has it been reviewed by a reputable industry organization, such as the nonprofit TRUSTe? Is it accessible from the front page, as well as from interactive and e-commerce sections? Does it cover: Methods of data collection from users, including "cookies"--the small bits of information that are stored on a user's computer and are used to identify the user when he or she revisits a site? Distribution of user data to third parties? A site's use of viewers' personal and financial data? Use of minors' personal information? As sites learn to study and track visitor behavior and advertisers get smarter about targeting audiences online, the appetite for traffic data beyond "page hits" grows.

Web sites already glean a good deal of information from visitors: Any time users buy a product, enter a contest, join a discussion or subscribe to an e-mail list, they trade tidbits of data about themselves. And recognized news organizations have an advantage when it comes to collecting user information, because people trust them more than straight commerce sites.

For extra assurance, many sites post public privacy policies backed by organizations like TRUSTe, which reviews and validates privacy practices on the Web. Web sites sanctioned by TRUSTe agree to tell users what personal information is collected, how it's used, who might see it, and what measures are in place to keep it secure.

Privacy policies should be the most public and visible of all Internet codes; there are few reputable news sites that don't already boast privacy emblems on their front pages.

EXTERNAL HYPERLINKS: Six Clicks To Smut Does your site link to external sites? Do you attribute links to those sites? If so, how? Do you identify the persons or groups that maintain them? Do you test each hyperlink you post? Do you ever link directly to sites containing explicit content depicting sex, violence or profanity? News sites thrive on liberal linking policies. Those that do it well serve as portals to the Web, connecting viewers with reliable and well-annotated resources. Those that do it poorly offer endless indexes to sites that are seldom used and seldom useful.

Bouncing between sites is a breeze for experienced surfers who recognize changes in domain or layout as they travel the Web. But to new surfers and old journalists, the practice of hyperlinking can be as odd and unexpected as if the New York Times inserted a section of USA Today between its own pages. That confusion is compounded by the fluidity of the Web: A site might vanish from one day to the next, and pornography is almost always a few clicks away.

The challenge for online editors is deciding how to accommodate readers' sensitivities without limiting their news content and resource functions.

Sometimes the need for qualification is clear: A reader could reasonably expect to be warned that the front page of the Nuremberg Files contains graphic imagery, or that the Starr report isn't suitable for young eyes.

Other concerns are more subtle: A conscientious reporter should not insert a link in a story about an airline strike without alerting viewers that the site is maintained by the pilots' union.

At a minimum, a careful writer will personally validate every URL, or Web address, he or she embeds. Many sites also include brief descriptions of hyperlinks; a few use buffer pages to notify viewers every time they hop off-site.

"Liberal linking--which is what we're all about--cuts both ways," says Maxwell of Minneapolis' Channel 4000. "Sometimes people love us, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you take it on the chin. Be consistent."

SENITIVE CONTENT:

Outrage And Brilliance When publishing content likely to offend some viewers, do you post a standard disclaimer? Do you ever use a buffer page between the news story and the questionable material, explaining the nature of the content? When sex and violence make headlines, news sites don't hold back. Find out what Monica Lewinsky did--or did not do--with President Clinton. Watch a man set himself on fire on a Los Angeles freeway. Listen to the 911 calls made during the siege at Columbine High School. Whether to post explicit words and pictures is a publisher's prerogative, just as it's always been.

"The Internet is like any other medium that's come before it," says Reid Johnson, founder and president of Internet Broadcasting Systems. "There's going to be outrage, there's going to be brilliance. You are always confronted with instances that you haven't anticipated, but I hope that our instincts as we go forward are to err on the side of letting the people decide. It's very important that we don't become--simply because of the technology--another layer of editing on the free flow of information."

As in any other medium, the way a site couches controversial material will determine how its visitors react and whether they come back. "I do think we have a responsibility to do a good job of advising the audience as they come into stories that there might be questionable or objectionable material found," Johnson says.

Most respected sites refrain from posting sensitive content in the main body of a news story, instead using text warnings or buffer pages to avoid unpleasant surprises.

SPONSORED CONTENT:

"The Viewers Aren't Stupid" Do you have standard banner sizes and layout positions for ads? Do you label advertisements and sponsored content? Do you include advertisements in news e-mail services? Do you ever intersperse advertising "headlines" or hyperlinks with news headlines? Do you accept political advertisements? If so, do you clearly identify them as advertisements? Do you position them near election-related news content? Probably no piece of paid property has received as much attention as the to-purchase-online button that appears by every book review in the New York Times Online, linking to e-commerce partner barnesandnoble.com. The Times didn't come up with the idea of the commerce link, but to some observers the endorsement was mortifying.

First there were worries that users wouldn't recognize the mini-banner as an advertisement. Then came criticism that a series of New York Times columns about the "blurring" of online news and commerce cited Amazon.com as an example but buried the Times' arrangement with barnesandnoble.com.

In a later New York Times article, Martin A. Nisenholtz, president of The New York Times Electronic Media Co., defended the Times' relationship with the bookseller. "It boils down to the perception that something has changed," he said. "The reality is that there's absolutely no interaction between the editorial side of the book review and the advertising side."

Today the linking practice is pervasive across news Web sites--and news writers haven't traded their press passes for sales kits yet. But some observers still say these are dark days for a medium that seasons editorial content with advertisements and paid links.

"Please," counters Marcia Lynx Qualey, senior managing editor at IBS. "You'll find more blurry Ôadvertorial content' in your local newspaper or favorite newsmagazine than you will online.'"

C.C. Sandorfi, senior editor at ZDNet and former managing editor of Channel 2000 in Los Angeles, concurs. "If we pander to advertisers and censor ourselves, limit content, whatever, the viewers aren't stupid; they'll know it, and they'll turn elsewhere for more objective news and information. Thus, in the short run, it might appear that our sales folks can sell more advertising. But in the long run, they'll lose, because page views will drop."

The problem, critics say, is that good intentions don't matter if a conflict is perceived, or if a user can't identify a paid link or text supplied by an advertiser, rather than the editorial staff. It's not enough to say you aren't in bed with your business partners; you need to go out of your way to prove it.

That's when a publicly accessible advertising policy can act as a site's conscience and first line of defense. A good one covers standard size, placement and notation. It should also require that all sponsored content be identified, especially near news stories.

"Where are legitimate, safe, understood ad spaces? That's probably the most pressing ethical issue for us to address," Qualey says. "There isn't a standard for where ad spaces are, what they look like or how they have to be labeled. And, of course, many advertisers see short-term value in hiding their ads in editorial spaces."

The International Chamber of Commerce (www.iccwbo.org) has published a code of practices for businesses with Web commerce, addressing data privacy, advertising to children and respect for discussion forums. The code does not discuss standard ad sizes or placement.

The Internet Content Coalition (www.netcontent.org) has a draft code that deals more directly with identifying advertisements and placement in relation to editorial content.

Finally, as the Web assumes a larger role in campaigns and election coverage, IBS' Qualey cautions online editors to pay close attention to fair treatment of candidate ads and home pages. "FCC regulations and election laws may not yet apply to our medium," she says, "but that doesn't mean we should try to violate them."

WITHOUT A TRACE:

Corrections And Retractions Do you have an easily accessible page or section devoted to retractions and corrections? When correcting erroneous material in a story, do you note the earlier error? Do you correct errors in archival material? Do you have an internal reporting and tracking procedure for errors and corrections, so that all staff members are aware of the mistakes? For how long must an error be posted before it warrants a correction? Fessing up can be a bitter pill, but one every newspaper has to swallow. That's not always the case on the Net. If an online error is caught quickly enough, it can be erased without a trace or a second thought, which is why online newspapers have been slow to adopt the correction policies of their hard-copy counterparts. That's changing, for two reasons: Viewers are becoming more observant, vocal and critical; they're forcing sites to be honest. "The readers seem to have the same filter impact as a copy editor desk," Fitzgerald says. "There are times when someone will say, 'By the way, you have four typos in your story.'" As more sites distribute content across the Web in newswire style, reeling it back in becomes a bigger trick. "One issue that does come up if you're a large organization like ZDNet is that if something goes out that's wrong, it becomes a real headache to fix it," Fitzgerald points out. But fix it they do. Sadly, most major sites bury corrections where only the most intrepid truth-seekers will look. An exception is CNET, a site focusing on computers and digital technologies, which offers a front-page link to its corrections section.

PILLAGING, PIRATING AND PARASITING: THOU SHALT NOT FRAME Do you ever frame other sites without permission? Do you ever copy "source code" from other sites without permission? In a realm where most of the legal and ethical landscape is gray, one practice is universally scorned. To "frame" a site is to force it to appear with the borders of another--merging content so that users might believe they are looking at a continuous site.

The battle on this ground started and ended in 1997, when the Washington Post and five other media giants sued a "virtual newsstand" called TotalNEWS for framing their sites within its own navigation. The plaintiffs accused TotalNEWS of pirating their copyrighted material and profiting from its unauthorized use.

TotalNEWS backed down, agreeing to link to the sites instead of framing them. Today it still frames the top-level pages of some sites--with an elaborate disclaimer and instructions for "breaking" the frameset.

"That was really classic," chuckles Michael Leventhal, head of the Technology and New Media department at the Los Angeles firm of Wolf, Rifkin & Shapiro LLP. Leventhal's Web site, www.wiredlaw.com, tracks new-media and intellectual property law.

"That was a new technology," Leventhal says. "There was no analog to that in media, prior to now. It would be like ABC running the NBC feed without giving credit. So you can just imagine these guys sitting there saying, 'Hey, I have a neat idea!' "

Far more common today is the unauthorized smuggling of Web code: Even Web neophytes can view and copy the code of most pages, transferring large documents or complex page layouts from one site to another in minutes. The theft enables the copycats to design beautiful page layouts without having much knowledge of HTML. (To view the code behind a Web page, click on "View," then "Source," on the top bar of your browser.)

The intent on the part of inexperienced programmers is usually innocent enough. In one case, the Freedom of Information Resource Center swiped a chunk of code used by IBS' Cleveland site to register visitors for automated severe weather alerts. The code didn't work, IBS' NewsNet5 had a good laugh, and the FOI people disabled the page.

Nevertheless, Leventhal says unauthorized HTML plundering--except for documents in the public domain--constitutes copyright infringement. Transgressions involving more complex or unique code are naturally easier to prove than theft of cookie-cutter layouts. But if someone else can show that you stole their work, they can sue you.

COPYRIGHTED IMAGES Do you post copyright notices on your own material? Do you take logos or images from private sites for use in related stories? If so, do you notify the owner or request permission? Do you attribute the image textually and/or link to the source site? Do you use generic images from personal home pages or icon libraries? Do you take images from other sites for non-news content? Do you modify images taken from other sites?

If you're picturing a programmer diligently sifting the vast sands of cyberspace for image bandits, look again.

A few years ago, tracking unauthorized use of artwork and other material on the Web was difficult, and the risk of being hauled into court was slim, especially for low-profile sites. Courteous thieves might have credited or linked to a source site, then posted an image until someone told them to take it down.

But today copyright owners have the tools and the motivation to protect their rights. Some use a technology called "digital watermarking," which is like a digital implant that can track an image and notify its owner when it crops up somewhere on the Web. "If I can be sent a message saying where [the art] is, it's going to be easy to find you and sue you, and it's going to be easy to put some compelling evidence in front of a judge and jury," new-media lawyer Leventhal says.

How do you know which images you can use? The rules are generally the same on the Internet as anywhere else, so a basic grasp of copyright law is a good start. Leventhal says it's usually safe to use images found on federal government sites (they're generally in the public domain) or to use corporate logos in related news coverage.

The ground gets shaky when there could be a perception that the material is being used to earn revenue (i.e., generate clicks) rather than to enhance a story. "I think you have to be careful to make sure it really looks like something you've put in your article to explain who you're talking about," Leventhal says. "The defense would be fair use in news.

"But that doesn't mean you can go out and grab whatever you want and say, 'Oh, we needed that for a news article.' Part of the analysis would be, 'Is that what you had to do to tell that story?' " And you're standing in quicksand when you start borrowing trademarked images for kicks--posting an image of Star Trek's USS Enterprise to draw clicks to a sci-fi feature, for example, is a bad idea.

VISITOR INTERACTION Do you host moderated discussions? If so, do you have a policy that addresses: Images or links off-site? Profanity? "Hate speech" or personal attacks? Personal information about third parties? Product promotions? Posts that do not pertain to the established topic? Do you post your discussion policy online? Do you notify viewers when their comments have been rejected? Do you ever edit discussion submissions? Do you have a policy for responding to visitor complaints, comments and requests? Do you keep a record of incoming and outgoing communications with users?

Newspapers have letters to the editor; TV and radio promote hotlines and call-in shows. But nowhere is the interaction between reporters and readers as fast and furious as on the Web.

Online forums foster vibrant public discourse. They also draw crackpots out of the woodwork. The question of the day is, are sites responsible for what participants say?

Online interaction, including Internet e-mail, discussions, bulletin boards, chats and auctions, can be sorted into two piles: moderated and unmoderated. Test cases suggest sites are responsible for content they moderate, acting as publishers of that material. If you set up a discussion and approve a libelous posting, you might get slapped with an old-fashioned defamation suit.

But if you merely build the "room" and close the door behind you, you shed some of that culpability along with your control. If participants try to sell their vital organs online (as a man recently attempted on the auction site eBay), that's their business.

The disadvantage of unmoderated forums is their tendency toward chaos. Barring "self-policing" behavior of participants--which eBay encourages--there's little a host can do to keep activity on track. Therefore, most news sites opt for moderation, as a service to their viewers.

Whether you're a freewheeling circus or a topical debate, the Poynter Institute's Paul says the rules of the game ought to be clear. The best protection is to make sure participants know what behavior is banned; guidelines should be consistently enforced.

Another type of interaction is direct correspondence between the reporter and reader. "Our medium is different because it's two-way," Qualey says. "You can shout at your television and rattle your newspaper--or you can fire off letters that will be carefully filed away--but your reactions are largely lost. On the Internet, I can post a story at 4:03 p.m. and have feedback by 4:08 p.m. And, based on that feedback, I could add a sidebar or change the wording of a sentence by 4:38 p.m."

Not all e-mails are so helpful. Some are rash and ruthless ("How did you become a reporter, you idiot!?") and hopelessly random ("Will it rain on my family reunion two weeks from Saturday?"). Nevertheless, keeping connected with one's audience is a critical part of the job. Respond to a question the same day it's asked, and you have a reader for life. Ignore it, and you might lose their love forever. "Why do we have to care?" Qualey asks. "Because somebody will, and viewers will prefer to go to the site where someone acts like viewers exist."

IN MANY WAYS, advances in Internet publishing technology and staffing structure have allowed new-media journalists to become more like their print predecessors. They don't just repackage stories from the print paper. They do interviews, gather research and publish articles. They know the pressure of round-the-clock deadlines and the thrill of jumping on spot news. They are columnists, field correspondents and investigative reporters.

But they're also taking on roles as organizers, archivers, moderators, package producers and virtual tour guides. They're nimble navigators of the World Wide Web, and digitizers of audio and video for multimedia packages. They respond to dozens of viewer e-mails daily and preside over dynamic discussions.

As journalists are reconfigured for the Web, so is journalism: Old dilemmas are resurfacing with new claws and fangs. "Slowly, we're developing policies for the same reason policies always have been developed: We run across the same problems over and over again," Qualey says. "Bulletin boards, new ad types, e-mail interaction, hypertext links, the ease of image and data transfer and other issues will push us into corners and force us to craft standards and policies." For many, this means fostering an atmosphere of awareness rather than writing hard-and-fast rules.

In addition to encouraging ethics and consistency in the daily routine, new-media reporters need ongoing education in the classroom and newsroom. Emerging professional groups such as the Online News Association promise to provide some of that leadership. "The genesis of [the ONA] was in a series of informal conversations that a lot of us would have with each other at lunches or conferences, to the extent that we were all grappling with the same issues," Jaroslovsky says. "A number of us have been involved in other professional organizations, but all those groups by necessity have an agenda that isn't as sharply focused on new-media issues."

At the same time, our colleagues have the power to recognize and encourage professional reporting on the Internet. Award categories and online committees at organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Press Club go a good distance toward securing industry standards on the Web.

In coming years, online journalism will weather an onslaught of legal and ethical challenges provoked by solid reporters, reckless renegades and blundering dinosaurs.

We are still threading our way across a minefield--an experience both frightening and exhilarating. Sometimes, we won't see the triggers until we've tripped them. Sometimes, fear and insecurity might make us hang back. Most of the time, there will be more confusion than consensus.

In sum, it might be fitting that this dynamic new medium resolves its dilemmas through lively discussions and ad hoc e-mail messages than stone tablets and firm edicts. "I care passionately about journalism," washingtonpost.com's Feaver says. "I care a great deal about protecting the name of the Washington Post.

"But a hard-and-fast rule is not going to address the enormous range of issues that you confront in a good newsroom. If we're good at our jobs, we need to be addressing these things all the time."