Internet increasingly a resource for local journalists
But some still don’t trust the information available on the Web.
by JACK CURRAN
Correspondent
PORTLAND – Fred Nutter, editorial director at WCSH-TV, says the Internet saves his time and his boss’s money. Before the Internet, Nutter says he had to order copies of bills being considered by the Maine legislature and read through them at his desk in order to decide which ones would be the subject of a Channel Six editorial. Those copies of proposed state laws would result in an annual bill from the State of Maine for about twenty-five hundred dollars.Nutter says he now has free access to the home pages of various government agencies so he can track and download copies of any bills he is interested in, saving time and money. “I use it all the time. I do all my legislative research on it.” But Nutter limits his use of the Internet to government-sponsored Web sites and a few others he knows well. “I don’t trust most of it unless I know the source.”
The Internet offers billions of pages of information for anyone who wants to tap into the Web. Anyone who has searched the Web however, knows first hand that at times there is too much information. And it is difficult, if not impossible, to verify the accuracy of the information.
Al Diamon, deputy editor at the Casco Bay Weekly in Portland, also doesn’t trust most of the information on the Internet, especially the home pages put up by individuals. “They’re about an reliable as an anonymous phone call.” Diamon avoids web sites designed by “people with fanatical devotion to some cause where the information is not just slanted, but just plain wrong.”
However, Diamon does use the Internet to save time when he feels he can trust the source. “I use the Net to get to government documents and to check out-of-town newspapers.” Diamon has used information gleaned from the Web for some stories. “I did a feature on Bloody Marys and other cocktails and found web sites dealing with the subjects. I have no idea if the information was true, but it could be presented as entertainment.”
For those who want to use more of the information available along the “Information Highway,” help is on the way. In January, The University of Southern Maine started offering a course on the Portland campus on how to use the Internet more efficiently and how to verify the trustworthiness of the information. The course is being taught by a reporter for the Portland Press Herald, Eric Blom, who says he uses the Internet to find people to include in his stories.
One of Blom’s colleagues at the Press Herald, Ray Routhier, says he uses the Internet to get information about the people he writes about and to verify autobiographical information he is given. “And I use it for general research to check out a topic. It has the information that I don’t have on my desk, at my fingertips, that would otherwise mean a trip to the library.”
As for trust, Routhier says he tries very hard to go to an official web site. “If I’m doing a story on a Stephen King book I go to his publisher’s web site, and stay away from a fan’s home page.” And Routhier says his faith in the information has grown. “ I’d say now, compared to a few years ago, I don’t have too much mistrust. Anything I do I try to verify.”
Routhier says another way to deal with the Internet is to find someone on the Web that he wants to talk to, and then call that person directly. “Without the Internet I never would have found that person, or had all the background information before calling. That’s where it’s really handy because before I was calling people blind.”
Routhier says the Internet also benefits his readers because he can find factual information more quickly and can put more factual information in his stories. Routhier says a few years ago he thought the Internet was more trouble than it was worth, but now that he has learned how to gather information on the Web and verify its accuracy he feels his readers benefit from the information. And Routhier says the solution for those journalists or researchers concerned about the quality of the information on the Web is to use the Internet often. He believes that infrequent users will continue to have trouble finding information, or spend too much time surfing the Net. Routhier says he can now take a few minutes in the middle of writing a story to search the Web for a fact that will add to the story.
A news producer at WMTW Television news in Maine says he uses the Internet on a limited basis for background information, because in television face-to-face meetings with newsmakers are necessary. So Matt Curren says he uses the Web to locate people, contact them, and then assign someone to go to them. The Internet is also able to transmit visuals, “if a crime happens in Bangor a mug shot can be e-mailed to us,” without a loss of quality. Curren says he expects to use the Web a lot more in the near future when he is able to download television quality video bites. Meanwhile, Curren says he uses the Internet and its e-mail to keep in touch with and update information from his colleagues at ABC news, the network affiliates, or major newspapers.
There are ways to verify the information available on the Internet, and for journalists or researchers who need to use the Internet help is on the way. In addition to the course at U.S.M. there are an increasing number of web pages devoted to helping journalists, or anyone else, get to the truth about the information on the Internet. There is even a term for these search techniques: CARR, or Computer Assisted Reporting and Research.