As the Star Tribune Online became more complex, graphics editor Jamie Hutt found his job became more difficult. I had to consider that a user could come into Star Tribune Online from just about any single document in the service. They may never see the front page. Our task was to take a lot of large pages that are covered with printed text arranged almost haphazardly and that are worthless twenty-four hours after they appear, and translate them into a medium where their contents will have value indefinitely, be a part of a much larger collection of data, be read on a small screen in a scrolling format, and be searchable ways. Journalists are facing a rapidly changing environment.
New media mean new roles within the industry.
Online publication has the capability to integrate sound and video clips into stories. A journalist with little online experience tends to think in terms of stories, news value, public service, and things that are good to read. These are the staples of a one-way medium. Aside from a new venue for their work, journalists are finding the Internet a valuable resource for information and communication. The study of computer-assisted research has become a hot topic, and several new investigative reporting sites have appeared with a wealth of resources for journalists.