[icernet] War coverage a defining moment for online news

[Arul Selvan]

Online coverage of the war in Iraq has been has been fast, well planned and relatively free of significant technological snafus, Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing reports. Coverage of the first days of war online got close to providing a replacement for broadcast news, Outing says. The best online coverage is coming from broadcast big guns like CNN, BBC News and MSNBC, which have the infrastructure to provide video on demand. MSNBC has seen a huge boost in Web traffic since the start of war. The site churned out more than 6 million live video streams and on-demand video clips on the first night of the war alone, Outing says. The Web has also been successful at delivering breaking news headlines at nearly the same speed as broadcast news, he says. But Outing's optimism isn't echoed by all. A recent New York Times article showed that some Web analysts are disappointed in the lack of online-only offerings.

Source:
http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/features_columns/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1848575