The technological and competitive rapids produced by the Internet are a challenge for traditional media.

As you can imagine, the senior business managers and newsroom editors at The News Tribune spend a lot of time on questions of proper navigation: how to steer for maximum effect, avoiding the rocks. And I write frequently in this column about how we’re dealing with those changes.

But the Internet is an equal challenge for the news consumer, who now must decide where to dip into the torrent of information to find the news that is most credible.

“There was a time when the only definition (of news) is whatever you read or see on TV or in the newspaper,” Mike Fancher, editor-at-large for The Seattle Times, said at a community forum held Tuesday at The News Tribune. That was when TV and newspapers were the news gatekeepers.

But, he said, the Internet exploded that definition.

“Now you decide what’s news,” and the choices are endless.

Fancher suggested that one way for information consumers to separate news from junk on the Internet is to look at how it’s produced. “News (from whatever source) is presented with a set of standards we call journalism, with checks and balances and editing.” These standards allow information to be tested for accuracy and truthfulness.

I would add that the methods should be transparent enough that the results are replicable.

David Brewster, founder of both the alternative paper Seattle Weekly and now Crosscut.com, an online newspaper for the Pacific Northwest (or what he calls Cascadia), sees the Internet as a distinct improvement over the ink-on-paper model.

“Print (journalism) is like a term paper,” Brewster said at the forum. “A reporter does his research and presents conclusions.

“But online journalism is much more like a conversation: ‘I’ve found out some things and here they are. What do you think?’ Or: ‘What can you add?’”

He said that truth-seeking in online journalism is more conversational and collaborative. And because the exchange of information is public, in the thread of comments that follows the original report, it can “breed greater confidence in the open-mindedness of the journalism.”

Fancher said that being credible has to start with recognition that the audience doesn’t assume we are. “We have to earn credibility,” he said.

His two recommendations: Be more open about how we operate, about our methods and motives. And admit mistakes when they happen.

Another panelist, Jack Hart – a Tacoma native who is an author, a writing coach and a former managing editor at The Oregonian – agreed with an audience member who said context was also critically important in judging news.

Hart said that as an editor, he kept a sign above his desk that read “So what? Who cares? What does it mean?” Those questions helped him aid reporters in presenting meaningful, memorable news to readers.

And Alex Tan, a professor at Washington State University and the former director of the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication there, suggested to the audience that they think about news in two ways.

“From the audience perspective, news is information that excites me,” he said. It can be a tantalizing story, or the extraordinary. At the extreme, one finds celebrity news or stories about violence.

“The other definition, the one that we’re using to educate the next generation of journalists, is that news is information that can energize and motivate a community to exercise their rights as citizens,” he said.

All of this prompted the moderator, Joanne Lisosky, a communications professor at Pacific Lutheran University, to note the need for schools to teach students how to understand and analyze the information they consume.

“Media literacy is a compulsory course in much of the rest of the world,” she said, but not yet in America. Media literacy teaches people how to better understand what they watch, see and read.

Tan said media literacy is one of the most popular courses in journalism education today, for journalists and nonjournalists.

“We need to teach students how to evaluate media, particularly on the Web,” he said.

And not just students. All of us.

Dave Zeeck: 253-597-8434

david.zeeck@thenewstribune.com

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