Stop the Microprocessors! : Experimental Digital 24-Hour Newsroom Gets a Trial Run

In a San Francisco office building Thursday, editors shouted for copy, photographers phoned in from distant lands and a constant stream of random citizens insisted there were crucial stories the staff had somehow neglected to assign.

Pretty normal day in the newsroom. But as soon as stories rolled into the high-tech headquarters of 24 Hours in Cyberspace they were edited, packaged, and within minutes, posted on the Internet, complete with pictures, text and audio.

The operation, which involved 100 journalists and technicians here in addition to 100 photographers in the field and countless amateur Net surfers--who sent in their own stories at the rate of one a minute--was one of the most ambitious real-time publishing effort on the Internet’s World Wide Web to date.

It wasn’t exactly traditional deadline journalism. Most of the stories had been assigned months in advance, and many of those involved agreed the project adhered to a less-than-critical attitude toward its subject, “the human face of the online revolution.” Typical stories included one on underprivileged schoolchildren designing Web pages for Silicon Valley executives.

Nevertheless, many observers said the publishing model, which employed digital cameras, a complex data management system and three key software programs working together, foreshadows the newsroom of the future, one where information will be instantly transmitted across the world--and the packaging of news will no longer be the solely the province of “professional” journalists.

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Although measuring the audience for a Web site remains an inexact science, https://www.cyber24.com had recorded about 3 million “hits” by late afternoon, which translates into about several hundred thousand visits. “More people have seen this in the last four hours than all the work I’ve done in the last 15 years,” said Rick Smolan, the project’s producer and president of Sausalito, Calif.-based Against All Odds Productions.

Smolan, who created the popular Day in the Life book series, hopes to produce a photo book and CD-ROM from the material collected for the Web site. Eastman Kodak Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc., who together with several other firms donated about $3 million in equipment, hope the new form of publishing will provide new markets and new ways to use their products.

Although the technology worked smoothly Thursday, preparations for the project were marred by a spat between Smolan and Nicholas Negroponte, head of the MIT Media Lab and a co-founder of Wired magazine. Negroponte alleges that Smolan essentially stole the idea from MIT, which held a similar event to celebrate its 10th anniversary last year and had hired Smolan as a consultant. Smolan contends he had the idea first.

Ironically, the event also took place on the day President Clinton signed into law a telecommunications bill that includes a broad ban on online smut. Web sites were urged to “go black” as a form of protest.

“We’re pushing the envelope of the technology and we’re pushing the envelope of journalism,” said Spencer Riess, the project’s managing editor who worked at Newsweek for 15 years as an editor and foreign correspondent.

“But journalism on the Web is in its infancy and anybody that claims to know what its future is speculating. We put together a lot of money and a lot of resources to do a really interesting experiment, and that’s what it is--an experiment.”