Growth and acceptance of these programs will be determined largely by quality of content - a concept that is in increasingly short supply at major media corporations. The Web viewer will not be able to determine whether a web publication is pushed out by a few people working in a basement, or a Fortune 500 Company. Both will have equal access to advertising dollars. The concept of content as king rests to a large degree on acceptance by the audience, and the loyalty developed by that audience for the program or publication. A recent Editor and Publisher article polled newspaper publishers to determine the relative asset base of their papers.
Online publishing offers individuals great opportunity to build goodwill bases at minimum cost.
In an online environment, a publisher can save all that money. This is an economic imperative that will eventually drive print to the Web. It is essential that individual journalists regard the Web as the ultimate vehicle for honest, fair and thorough content. Those sites that can demonstrate to their audience that their content is dependable, will move to the fore. The same standards that have traditionally been observed in print and broadcast must be transferred to even the smallest websites.