Some See Internet Coming of Age During Clinton Troubles
For some, the furor surrounding President Clinton has signaled the coming of age of the Internet. Others complain that it has marked a new low in cheeky irreverence in the public dissemination of information.
Regardless, there is little question that unlike at any time in this fledgling medium’s history, the sprawling tentacles of the World Wide Web have extended their reach in responding to the allegations of a sexual relationship between Clinton and former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky.
“This story has done for the Internet what the Gulf War did for CNN, and what the Kennedy assassination did for television in general,” said Michael Kinsley, editor of the online Slate magazine.
News junkies, predictably, have become heavy users, clicking on from their computers to scan Web sites set up by traditional news outlets, to trade opinions and gossip within chat groups and to visit the home pages of a new genre of journalists operating within cyberspace.
“This could well be a defining moment for the Internet,” said Matt McAllister, associate professor of communications studies at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
The use of the Internet already had grown dramatically before the current controversy enveloped Washington.
One recent survey put the number of users at 21% of U.S. adults, an increase of one-third from 1997. And Gary Arlen, president of a Maryland research firm specializing in interactive media, estimated that 24 million households are wired to the Internet, meaning there are probably more than twice that number of actual users.
Most Americans still rely primarily on newspapers, television and radio, media watchers note. Nevertheless, the events of the last two weeks--as they have been reported online and have influenced the response of traditional journalistic outlets--give credence to Kinsley’s belief that, “the Internet made this story. And the story made the Internet.”
The prime example of Kinsley’s assertion is the online gadfly Matt Drudge’s “Drudge Report.” It was on an otherwise quiet Jan. 19, Martin Luther King Day, that Drudge reported on his Web site that Newsweek had written, then decided to hold, a story on Clinton and Lewinsky.
Propelled by that report, details of the story began surfacing for a handful of mainstream media, including The Times--on the night of Jan. 20. Newsweek sought to recover from its lost scoop by scrambling to release its information midweek on its Web site.
“This was a way for a magazine that only comes out once a week to recoup and lay journalistic claim on a story between issues,” McAllister said. “It also poses the danger of gross inaccuracy.”
This was especially glaring in the case of the Dallas Morning News, which rushed online last week to report that investigators had spoken with a Secret Service agent who was ready to testify he had seen Clinton and Lewinsky in a “compromising situation.”
Within hours, however, the paper yanked the story off its Web site, backing off its report.
“News on the Internet has no accountability,” said one Connecticut man who logs on frequently but who is skeptical of information he reads there. “Anybody can say anything--and many do. Conventional news agencies have to verify their information before publication--those publishing on the Internet should too--but that won’t happen until enough of them are sued.”
Kinsley believes there should be a journalistic middle ground between the highest standards and none at all, and offers the Internet as the likely place.
He believes that the Clinton-Lewinsky story has solidified the Internet’s role in the news-gathering process.
Reflecting on the new dynamic, he said: “All of you guys in the big newsroom head to the Web at the first sign of distant smoke. You head to Drudge, hopefully to Slate, to the network news sites and to the CNN sites, just as you reflexively turn on TV and CNN when something like this starts coming.”
* WWW.SORT-IT-OUT.COM: The Internet has Web page after Web page on the controversy. D3
