It's a tide. Salon seems to be on the winning side, as Internet stock mania and online success stories fatten portfolios and validate the Web, at least for investors. Twenty-six months is a long time in new media, long enough to watch Web journalism transform itself and seek its place in the mediasphere. I was on hand when it was learning to crawl. Housed in Manhattan's Silicon Alley and ringed with suspended televisions, Fox News's sleek newsroom suggests the bridge of the starship Enterprise.
Little paper is put to use.
E-mail is the dominant form of interoffice dialogue. Within days of starting my job as a feature writer, I realize that e-mail is also a venue for disjointed, almost subliminal communication. I am struck by the number of conversations I have via e-mail with people who might sit five or ten feet away, conversations that are never vocalized or, sometimes, even acknowledged. As in most online news organizations, the vast majority of staff members are under thirty. My job is to create feature stories that push the technological and interactive envelopes, working with a graphic designer, two producers, a photo editor, and, usually, a video producer.