Real time journalism Real-time news delivery serves audience needs for timely information.

Competition in real-time journalism is measured in fractions of a second; a minute behind with the news is officially late. As one real time news editor said, "timeliness is everything. There was a time I thought ap (associated press) was a fast service, but they catered to the daily newspaper market. Competition is by seconds. Ten years ago it was by hours." as a result, real-time journalism is oriented towards timeliness and important information would be expected to influence the amount and rate of news delivery to the audience. Real-time news stories are transmitted on a computer screen, limiting story lengths to about 15 to 20 lines of text - or about two or three short newspaper paragraphs of information - per screen. Real-time news articles are generally released with a headline followed by five to seven short paragraphs of information, about two computer screen-pages long - limits that would constrain a narrative story structure. But real-time stories can be released in several newstakes as separate news items, permitting a story to be developed at greater length. Editing for the computer screen involves more than just tight writing to conserve computer screen space. Editors must arrange the facts in a straightforward, logical order, selecting the most important information and omitting the rest. Finance and sports are two categories that make the best use of real time journalism. Audience needs In addition, the real-time journalism may intensify the need to condense news for the computer screen and, thus, for its audience. Reporters and editors have only enough time and space to convey the essential information, and that is usually all the reader wants to see. Since real-time journalism is directed toward a sophisticated audience, background material and explanation often aren't needed. Realtime news content also provides more of a news bulletin service, possibly leaving the role of providing explanation and background material to the newspaper. Real-time journalists write for a highly educated, specialized subscriber base that makes practical, daily use of the news. With speed as the primary aim, writing style becomes secondary. But another audience need - readability - remains crucial. Audience ability to immediately comprehend the material is of utmost concern to real-time journalists. Ease of reading material is determined by several elements, including typography, reader interest and writing style. Readability measures often evaluate vocabulary and grammatical complexities. The contention that media routines address audience needs might indicate greater readability levels for real-time news articles because of the audience's need for quickly and immediately comprehensible information. Real-time readability also may be easier, given the limited computer screen space and the continuous dissemination of shorter-length articles. But real-time journalism's primary

emphasis on speed necessitates quicker writing and editing and could lead to decreased readability levels when compared to newspaper articles. Organizational needs In the real-time industry, the central sites and times of news are linked across space and time through global computer networks, which expand the spatial and temporal scope of newswork by linking newsrooms around the world and across different time zones. Reporting and editing schedules, as well as news deadlines, must be coordinated on an international basis. A real-time executive described this coordination and expansion: "the real-time medium demands relevance, speed and accuracy because of the time element. Trading activity is minute-to-minute. Real-time journalists are writing as it happens, and within seconds you see the audience react." Sources Real-time journalism may rely upon the same routine sources of news, yet may encounter different source constraints. For example, a minute-tominute news environment requires a different reporting style. Real-time journalists depend on insights of sources actively engaged activities and can be in frequent contact with these sources throughout the day. Such heightened time pressure limits the time available to gather news from multiple sources. Shorter article lengths satisfy real-time audience needs for brief, factual information that can be read quickly. Time constraints to produce news also prohibit longer stories. Brief items are released as separate news takes over time. Computer software and hardware impose their own limits on space, although each real-time provider would have such limits. In contrast, newspaper articles consolidate information into a single story for daily publication. Such shorter lengths also might account for the greater amount and faster rate of real-time news delivery. Journalists - real-time or otherwise - still have to write simply. And both media use the same format conventions. Story organization and narrative structure have been found to be shared among all media and endure in the realtime medium. Moreover, some of the stories in both media appeared to originate from the same sources. In some instances, when bylines were included, the same author was identified in the real-time and newspaper articles. Also, it seems much of the content originated from wire sources because two compared articles were so often similar. It seems both media may simply edit the material for their own formats. Finally, practical considerations probably influence the usage of sources. Just as broadcast news reports use fewer sources than newspaper stories, realtime - with its similar time-sensitive orientation toward continuous production of shorter news items - also uses fewer sources. This practice is considered acceptable largely due to the sharper time and smaller space constraints. And when story lengths are considered, the differences in source usage disappear. A broader base of sources would be preferred, but it is not demanded. The news provided in real time may

or may not be authentic as generally sources provide information off the record . And the realtime medium's sources may be less readily available to respond within the more immediate realtime deadlines, when compared with newspapers' longer deadline cycle. In addition, news gathering promotes reliance upon routine channels of news sources. The time limits of news production encourage journalists to actively pursue only a small number of sources who are available and adequate. Similarly, real-time journalists - working under heightened deadline pressures - may be less dependent on a broad range of news sources. In addition, the real-time medium reorganizes journalistic routines. As a computer-oriented medium, it allows a great quantity of articles to be released, many simultaneously. Such continuous release and global, ongoing demand for news makes for shorter, quicker stories, which in turn may necessitate fewer sources or - at the least - reliance on regular, more available sources in some cases. The real-time medium alters journalism practices. Journalism news gathering and writing practices are affected by the speed and computer format of real-time news delivery. Realtime source identification is similar but stories are shorter. These differences perhaps point to the increasing influence of technology on the routines of news writing - the building of stories in several takes and their immediate dissemination contrast with methodically integrating information into a single story and arranging that information in the most critical order. A fast food analogy comes closest to describing the two methods, with real-time being fast and traditional practices representing home cooking. Vertical and Horizontal Communication of Media Most media today aim at specialized audiences--what we call horizontal media--while daily newspapers, network radio, and national television outlets--vertical media--still aim mainly at the entire community from the president to the humblest citizen. The evolution of technology favors both vertical and horizontal media, and citizens in a free society will avail themselves, if they are interested and have the means and access, of a variety of agendas, although they will be partial to those that fit their values and interests. As we have seen, sometimes vertical and horizontal media work together to build national community, and sometimes they work at cross-purposes, polarizing segments of the larger community. Both vertical (mass media) and horizontal (niche) media aim to inform, but their missions--their agendas--are somewhat different. The vertical and horizontal media we use influence the way we see events. Vertical media remain strong, but horizontal media perspectives are rising as audiences enjoy the rich and readily available information environment. One consequence of our ability to reach for media that fit our personal interests is that now, as never before, we can fit events to our own expectations. In other words, we can meld the news to fit our own agendas. Such agenda-melding is occurring wherever the horizontal media have spread, with all their

potential for enriching citizen knowledge and destabilizing rigid vertical societies and institutions. The rise horizontal media has undercut the vertical media's ability to--for want of a better term-dominate the interpretation of events. The new media have threaded another horizontal strand into our emerging society. Much of this is good news: as a people, we should be less tractable, not so prone to spurious crises or complacent about unaddressed problems or inequities. The new media has the potential to make us a smarter, more civically active population. At the same time, however, as we noted earlier, the rise of niche media might also be tremendously divisive: it could split the national community into specialized groups, each of whose interests supersede the larger community's interests.