SevenQuestions: Robert Niles

Seven answers on 7Q (also known as the FAQs of life.)
Interviewed by Tom Mangan

Robert Niles, online news honcho.

His homepage is here; go there if you're in the news biz. He also contributed to the original 7Q.

AUTHORS

Michael Fuchs
Elizabeth Hilts
Paul Riddell
Gary Rivlin
Jim Motavalli
Barbara Shafferman
Jules Siegel
Keith Snyder

ARTISTS/POETS/
PHILOSOPHERS

Jon C. Allen
Will Baker
Mike Leung
Jon Sarkin

COOL SITE KEEPERS

Mike Cash
Scott O'Neal Colf
Godfrey Daniels
Cliff Davis, DDS
Tammy Hocking
Wes Modes
Frank Rogan

DIARISTS

Ralph Becker
J. D. Bruns
Linda DeVault
Mike Reed
Moira Richardson
Jessamyn West

FILMMAKERS

Ben Kufrin
Dean Mermell

JOURNALISTS

Bernie
Mary Cooley-Jones
Lindsay Crysler
Jamie Dupree
M.O.A.T.M.A.I.
David Moll
Robert Niles
John Orr
Steven Ovadia
Pierce Presley
Mack Reed
Rip Rense
Curtis Ross
Neal Ross
John Scalzi
Catherine Seipp
David Sheets
Dwight Silverman
Matt Welch

MOVIE MAVENS

MaryAnn Johanson
Brian Koller

HUMORISTS

Debbie Farmer
Mike Jasper
Madeleine Begun Kane
Patrick Keller
Bob Sassone
Valerie Sprague
Ken Swarmer
Ian Wolff

SOLDIERS

Maj. Jon Anderson, USAF

TEACHERS

John Warner

TECHIES

Chris Adamson
Mike Gunderloy
Michael Ivey
Greg Knauss
Floyd Maxwell
Ellen McDonough
Mike Pingleton
Wayne Thume
John Worth

TEENS

Gary Baum
Marty Beckerman

UNDECLARED

Bev Gibbs
Beth Reid

WEBLOGGERS

Jason Kottke
Jish Mukerji

ONE
Let's revisit Columbine: You're on duty and you see CNN swarming over the grounds of a high school just down the road a ways from Denver. What were the first things running through your head as you started figuring out how you were going to cover it online?

First thing: If you wait until CNN's swarming over town, you've missed the story. Fortunately, we got the story online before CNN, but we still weren't as quick as I'd have liked.

I'll admit that my first reaction to the news was disbelief. I thought that this would turn out to be a shooting outside the high school, maybe involving a couple former students, at worst.

Once I got past that, I had to figure out how we were going to get information, how we'd format it, and how we were going to get the extra bandwidth we were going to need to keep the site up.

TWO
I read somewhere that you were taking stuff right off television and posting it online. I mentioned it to an editor at a big paper and he said he'd never do such a thing. What's the big deal about taking what you're seeing on TV and posting to your site?

That's why so many ex-print editors make really lousy online producers. I mean, c'mon. People are logging on for the latest information. If someone else is reporting something you don't have independently, I don't see a problem with reporting that someone else is saying something. Then, if it's wrong, point out that earlier reports from so-and-such were incorrect, and here's the current, correct information.

If you want to wait until you've got the story nailed down, no one's gonna use your Web site for breaking news. And by pointing out what was reported on other sources earlier, you help people who were watching coverage and stepped away for a while catch up.

Most of what we took off TV was from news conferences, anyway. And I see no problem with transcribing a news conference onto the Web via a TV feed. It's certainly better than sending a reporter and waiting for him to get back and transcribe the conference himself. Doing it our way, we whipped ABC, CNN and AP in getting a lot of really good stuff (like the accurate death toll) online before anyone else in the world. If we'd left the TV off, those guys would've whipped us.

THREE

What do you think you did wrong in covering Columbine that other online journalists do right the next time they have a big national story drop in their laps?

We didn't have a plan in place before this happened. That's the problem with being the industry's guinea pig, I guess.

Since April, I've encouraged other online journalists to develop their own disaster plans for major breaking news. Who's going to gather the information? Who will collect it and produce it for online? What will the online format of that information be? Who will place the order for additional server space (for log files) and bandwidth from your ISP?

In addition, you'll need to test all the applications that run on your site to ensure that they can handle dramatically higher loads. We found, the hard way, that our banner ad server couldn't handle the traffic load we had. So we ran the site without ads for three days. We should have known that our ad server couldn't cut it at higher traffic levels. That way, we could have bought a better server before getting to the point where it endangered our site's performance.

FOUR
A lot of us did a lot of soul searching about the Web when the Internet angle of the shootings was revealed. Has any of this -- and other similar atrocities whose wheels were at least a bit greased by all the hate sites on the Web -- shaken your faith in the value of free speech?

Just the opposite. Columbine convinced me that the Web is civilization's early warning system against hate crimes.

It bothers me to see so many people who don't really know this story try to paint it as an example of the corrupting influence of the Internet and/or video games. Or of the failure to teach religious values in the public schools. Or whatever. If Columbine reflects any issue other than the hatred felt by two kids against their classmates, it is a tragic failure of communication.

Classmates of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were well aware of their hatred and plan for violence, thanks to Harris' Web site. They and their parents reported Harris's online threats to school authorities. But the school authorities didn't give those complaints the attention that, in hindsight, they obviously deserved.

Perhaps if the school authorities had know that Klebold and Harris had junvenile criminal records and were on probation, they might have taken the threats more seriously. After all, if the juvenile court had known of the threats, Klebold and Harris would have been in violation of their probation, and might have been locked up in juvenile hall on the day of shootings. And 12 kids and one teacher might be alive today.

But thanks to privacy laws that shield the identity of juvenile offenders, authorities didn't communicate in this case. And the early warning provided by the Internet went unheeded.

FIVE
The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post represent the last great American newspaper battle of this century: two papers in the same big-city market fighting over the same readers. Can you share a newsroom anecdote that seems to illustrate just how serious the rivalry is?

Oh, man. I couldn't begin to sort through them all to give you the best. So I'll give you the most recent.

On the last election night, Colorado had a bunch of initiatives designed to override a "taxpayers' bill of rights," passed a few years back, that limited governments' ability to increase spending. So we hosted a chat with the guy who wrote and championed the "taxpayers' bill of rights."

Obviously, he was going to be an interesting person to talk to, since it was his law that was forcing so many ballot issues. Plus, by locking him up in a chat room all night, the Post couldn't get him for an interview. It's the sort of low-down trick that TV pulls all the time. And thanks to the Internet, newspapers can pull it now, too.

Of course, a Post reporter logged into our chat room and started asking questions. And he put our guy's answers in their story the next day. But he just mentioned that the guy was in "an Internet chat room" - and not that it was OUR chat room.

So we retailiated with a full page ad in print that said: "Follow the 'News.' The 'Post' sure does." And we reprinted the graph in their article that quoted the guy and pointed out that the quote came from our chat room. We threw in a line about the time-honored journalism practice of crediting your sources, too.

SIX
What do you think newspapers must do to avoid going the way of stone tablets and buggy whips?

Acknowledge that people are turning to the Internet for breaking news and agate data, like stock prices and box scores.

Newspapers should reinvent themselves to focus on providing perspective and telling great narrative stories - that, quite frankly, don't play as well on the 'net. TV survived cable. Radio and movies survived TV. And newspapers survived radio. But all had to tweak their focus as the public looked to a new medium for part of the information they wanted. Newspapers as an institution will survive the Internet. But individual newspapers will need to tell the types of stories that print tells best if they wish to survive.

SEVEN
How'd you get into journalism, anyway?

I liked analyzing news and events, but the idea of writing reports for management consultants bored me. So I took my stats and political science (undergrad) degrees and enrolled in a graduate j-school. Then I just hung around in lousy opinion writing jobs waiting for the Web to show up, and for the real fun to begin.

THE BIG INDEX...
Who they are, what they do, how they think. Go there now.

A TO Z ARCHIVE...

Everybody here, with quickie bios. Go there now.

Return to the main Seven Questions page
See the original Newsies 7Q project

Contact info@sevenquestions.com
Copyright 1999-2002, Thomas L. Mangan



Seven answers on 7Q (also known as the FAQs of life.)	Interviewed by Tom Mangan Robert Niles, online news honcho. His homepage is here; go there if you're in the news biz. He also contributed to the original 7Q.	AUTHORS Michael Fuchs Elizabeth Hilts Paul Riddell Gary Rivlin Jim Motavalli Barbara Shafferman Jules Siegel Keith Snyder ARTISTS/POETS/ PHILOSOPHERS Jon C. Allen Will Baker Mike Leung Jon Sarkin COOL SITE KEEPERS Mike Cash Scott O'Neal Colf Godfrey Daniels Cliff Davis, DDS Tammy Hocking Wes Modes Frank Rogan DIARISTS Ralph Becker J. D. Bruns Linda DeVault Mike Reed Moira Richardson Jessamyn West FILMMAKERS Ben Kufrin Dean Mermell JOURNALISTS Bernie Mary Cooley-Jones Lindsay Crysler Jamie Dupree M.O.A.T.M.A.I. David Moll Robert Niles John Orr Steven Ovadia Pierce Presley Mack Reed Rip Rense Curtis Ross Neal Ross John Scalzi Catherine Seipp David Sheets Dwight Silverman Matt Welch MOVIE MAVENS MaryAnn Johanson Brian Koller HUMORISTS Debbie Farmer Mike Jasper Madeleine Begun Kane Patrick Keller Bob Sassone Valerie Sprague Ken Swarmer Ian Wolff SOLDIERS Maj. Jon Anderson, USAF TEACHERS John Warner TECHIES Chris Adamson Mike Gunderloy Michael Ivey Greg Knauss Floyd Maxwell Ellen McDonough Mike Pingleton Wayne Thume John Worth TEENS Gary Baum Marty Beckerman UNDECLARED Bev Gibbs Beth Reid WEBLOGGERS Jason Kottke Jish Mukerji



ONE	Let's revisit Columbine: You're on duty and you see CNN swarming over the grounds of a high school just down the road a ways from Denver. What were the first things running through your head as you started figuring out how you were going to cover it online? First thing: If you wait until CNN's swarming over town, you've missed the story. Fortunately, we got the story online before CNN, but we still weren't as quick as I'd have liked. I'll admit that my first reaction to the news was disbelief. I thought that this would turn out to be a shooting outside the high school, maybe involving a couple former students, at worst. Once I got past that, I had to figure out how we were going to get information, how we'd format it, and how we were going to get the extra bandwidth we were going to need to keep the site up.



TWO	I read somewhere that you were taking stuff right off television and posting it online. I mentioned it to an editor at a big paper and he said he'd never do such a thing. What's the big deal about taking what you're seeing on TV and posting to your site? That's why so many ex-print editors make really lousy online producers. I mean, c'mon. People are logging on for the latest information. If someone else is reporting something you don't have independently, I don't see a problem with reporting that someone else is saying something. Then, if it's wrong, point out that earlier reports from so-and-such were incorrect, and here's the current, correct information. If you want to wait until you've got the story nailed down, no one's gonna use your Web site for breaking news. And by pointing out what was reported on other sources earlier, you help people who were watching coverage and stepped away for a while catch up. Most of what we took off TV was from news conferences, anyway. And I see no problem with transcribing a news conference onto the Web via a TV feed. It's certainly better than sending a reporter and waiting for him to get back and transcribe the conference himself. Doing it our way, we whipped ABC, CNN and AP in getting a lot of really good stuff (like the accurate death toll) online before anyone else in the world. If we'd left the TV off, those guys would've whipped us.



THREE	What do you think you did wrong in covering Columbine that other online journalists do right the next time they have a big national story drop in their laps? We didn't have a plan in place before this happened. That's the problem with being the industry's guinea pig, I guess. Since April, I've encouraged other online journalists to develop their own disaster plans for major breaking news. Who's going to gather the information? Who will collect it and produce it for online? What will the online format of that information be? Who will place the order for additional server space (for log files) and bandwidth from your ISP? In addition, you'll need to test all the applications that run on your site to ensure that they can handle dramatically higher loads. We found, the hard way, that our banner ad server couldn't handle the traffic load we had. So we ran the site without ads for three days. We should have known that our ad server couldn't cut it at higher traffic levels. That way, we could have bought a better server before getting to the point where it endangered our site's performance.



FOUR	A lot of us did a lot of soul searching about the Web when the Internet angle of the shootings was revealed. Has any of this -- and other similar atrocities whose wheels were at least a bit greased by all the hate sites on the Web -- shaken your faith in the value of free speech? Just the opposite. Columbine convinced me that the Web is civilization's early warning system against hate crimes. It bothers me to see so many people who don't really know this story try to paint it as an example of the corrupting influence of the Internet and/or video games. Or of the failure to teach religious values in the public schools. Or whatever. If Columbine reflects any issue other than the hatred felt by two kids against their classmates, it is a tragic failure of communication. Classmates of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were well aware of their hatred and plan for violence, thanks to Harris' Web site. They and their parents reported Harris's online threats to school authorities. But the school authorities didn't give those complaints the attention that, in hindsight, they obviously deserved. Perhaps if the school authorities had know that Klebold and Harris had junvenile criminal records and were on probation, they might have taken the threats more seriously. After all, if the juvenile court had known of the threats, Klebold and Harris would have been in violation of their probation, and might have been locked up in juvenile hall on the day of shootings. And 12 kids and one teacher might be alive today. But thanks to privacy laws that shield the identity of juvenile offenders, authorities didn't communicate in this case. And the early warning provided by the Internet went unheeded.



FIVE	The Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post represent the last great American newspaper battle of this century: two papers in the same big-city market fighting over the same readers. Can you share a newsroom anecdote that seems to illustrate just how serious the rivalry is? Oh, man. I couldn't begin to sort through them all to give you the best. So I'll give you the most recent. On the last election night, Colorado had a bunch of initiatives designed to override a "taxpayers' bill of rights," passed a few years back, that limited governments' ability to increase spending. So we hosted a chat with the guy who wrote and championed the "taxpayers' bill of rights." Obviously, he was going to be an interesting person to talk to, since it was his law that was forcing so many ballot issues. Plus, by locking him up in a chat room all night, the Post couldn't get him for an interview. It's the sort of low-down trick that TV pulls all the time. And thanks to the Internet, newspapers can pull it now, too. Of course, a Post reporter logged into our chat room and started asking questions. And he put our guy's answers in their story the next day. But he just mentioned that the guy was in "an Internet chat room" - and not that it was OUR chat room. So we retailiated with a full page ad in print that said: "Follow the 'News.' The 'Post' sure does." And we reprinted the graph in their article that quoted the guy and pointed out that the quote came from our chat room. We threw in a line about the time-honored journalism practice of crediting your sources, too.



SIX	What do you think newspapers must do to avoid going the way of stone tablets and buggy whips? Acknowledge that people are turning to the Internet for breaking news and agate data, like stock prices and box scores. Newspapers should reinvent themselves to focus on providing perspective and telling great narrative stories - that, quite frankly, don't play as well on the 'net. TV survived cable. Radio and movies survived TV. And newspapers survived radio. But all had to tweak their focus as the public looked to a new medium for part of the information they wanted. Newspapers as an institution will survive the Internet. But individual newspapers will need to tell the types of stories that print tells best if they wish to survive.



SEVEN	How'd you get into journalism, anyway? I liked analyzing news and events, but the idea of writing reports for management consultants bored me. So I took my stats and political science (undergrad) degrees and enrolled in a graduate j-school. Then I just hung around in lousy opinion writing jobs waiting for the Web to show up, and for the real fun to begin.


	THE BIG INDEX... Who they are, what they do, how they think. Go there now. A TO Z ARCHIVE... Everybody here, with quickie bios. Go there now. Return to the main Seven Questions page See the original Newsies 7Q project Contact info@sevenquestions.com Copyright 1999-2002, Thomas L. Mangan