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Privacy | Hyperlinking | Chat rooms | Corrections

Some issues affecting the credibility of a Web site or online news provider are unique to cyberspace. The bleed of advertising into editorial and a constant deadline pressure are issues faced by newspapers, wire services and broadcasters every day. But privacy concerns, hyperlinking, chat rooms and forums, and instant corrections are mostly unique to the Web.

These unique challenges for the online world have been the subject of articles for the Poynter Institute and the American Journalism Review. Below is a synopsis of the major issues unique to the Web.

• Privacy: While newspapers have subscribers, no one at the newspaper knows what you are reading or even if you are reading the product. Unless you signed up to be a newfangled Nielsen family, no one is watching you flip through the seemingly endless bad television programs on cable.

  Not so with the online world, where each page view can be tracked without the user being aware. Credible news organizations are now "fessing up" to how they track users and who gets to see the information they collect.

  "Don't fool your readers has always been the best standard. People now are doing things on the Web that they'd never have the nerve to do in print," Dianne Lynch, chair of the department of journalism at St. Michael's College, told the Poynter Institute.

  

• Hyperlinking: More than just an advertising vs. editorial issue. Hyperlinking also has implications for just the news editors. Are the sites you are linking to credible? Will the reader be shocked or offended by content on linked sites? If so, does the news organization have an obligation to warn readers of potentially harmful material? In the case of hate speech, does linking to a hate group promote that group's message?

  Poynter columnist Fred Mann of Philadelphia Online suggests that access to raw material is both a strength and a weakness of online hyperlinking. On one hand, the reader can sift directly through the meat of a report or a speech. On the other hand, the reader might not always have the perspective and background to make sense of the material or enough information to judge the credibility of the original source.

  

• Chat rooms and reader's forums: The Web offers an unprecedented avenue for feedback from readers on news events. But the questions for news organizations are: Do you edit the material? Do you correct inaccuracies in postings? Do you allow any type of posting, including hate speech or endorsements of commercial products or services?

  Newspapers pick and choose letters to the editor and often edit them for space, style and sense. Now that everything is going online, newspapers need to decide if they want to relinquish that control. In the spirit of the electronic frontier, online news outlets can let readers vent without fear of editing, but the news organization's name is still on the site.

  

• Quick corrections:A couple of clicks and mistakes can be erased online without anyone the wiser. No incriminating front page will haunt you. No bored technicians will ever put together a bloopers tape. Errors, what errors?

  But a journalist wanting to establish credibility with a reader admits to making mistakes. According to studies of newspaper credibility, readers feel better when they see corrections. The online world might learn from the print side and post corrections prominently.