Our insatiable appetite for information is not new, but it is becoming distinctly more pronounced. Whether it is village gossip or reports of world wars and global tragedies, giving and getting news has always figured largely in the lives of men and women. The Internet, with its hundreds of millions of information sites, feeds this demand with increasing speed and availability - and decreasing costs.
On April 16th, 1912, The Irish Times told its readers of a tragedy unfolding in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean. "Almost as we go to press", the report reads, "the awful news reaches us of the loss of the Titanic ... The telegrams are brief".
As the newspaper was being printed in Dublin, more than 24 hours after the Titanic struck an iceberg, news of what exactly had happened was still sketchy. As the people of Ireland read the report the next morning, Titanic was already sitting on the bottom of the ocean, with close to 1,700 passengers dead alongside her.
Eighty-eight years later, at 4 p.m. on Tuesday July 5th, 2000, details of another human tragedy started filtering through news organisations, including this one. By 4.20 p.m., 20 minutes after Concorde flight AF4590 crashed after takeoff outside Paris, the world knew that 113 people had perished and the world's fastest passenger jet had crashed in a ball of fire into a hotel near the French capital. By 5 p.m., eye witness accounts were available and early that evening photographs were published on websites around the world.
By the time the nine o'clock news went on air, the majority of the news-consuming public was already very well-informed of the events of that afternoon. And by the time daily newspapers hit the streets the following day, the story had already been told. It was left to the newspapers to mop up the facts, describe the aftermath, surmise and look for a cause. The function of newspapers, television and radio stations is changing.
The Internet, however, has found its niche, becoming the most effective means of providing breaking news to the largest possible audience. Free from the constraints of publishing and delivery times and seamlessly crossing world boundaries at the touch of a button, the Web will change, and already has changed, the way we consume news.
Its global nature allows Sean in Toronto to read about a fatal car crash in Nenagh minutes after it happens, while Kate in Tullamore can check the closing prices on New York's Nasdaq and the opening prices on Tokyo's Nikkei from the same site at any time of the day or night. She can have the information emailed to her if she so chooses, she can access it on her phone, or at home on her PC, or via her television set.
The editor of The New York Times on the Web, Bernard Gwertzman, believes much more news is now available on news sites on the Web than is available in newspapers or TV or radio. "I find that many people now use the Web as the primary source of information," he told Computimes. "I think the Internet is for many people the real source of breaking news already.
"The New York Times recognises the importance of using the website for breaking news and also for spreading the New York Times articles world wide. It has implemented a formal desk arrangement by which breaking news is sent from the paper to the website," Gwertzman adds.
The boast of "news on the hour every hour" has lost its wonder with the emergence of news on the Web. While 24-hour television news channels in the early 1990s allowed audiences to dip in and out of news content at will, the Web has taken another crucial step forward.
Luke McManus, who heads up RTE's online division, says: "I think the current trajectory of consumer behaviour towards news began in the early 1990s with the successes of the 24-hour news stations. Suddenly, there was an identifiable and potentially profitable demand for breaking news, and developments in the Internet have simply enabled more ways of meeting that demand. Convenience is an important customer criterion in most businesses now, and news provision is no exception".
McManus believes that digital content, as opposed to simply online content, will mark the future of news for his organisation. "We have made a significant investment in the online news division, as have all serious players in the media sector," he says.
A major study in the US in April by the Pew Research Centre showed an increase of Internet news audience and a decline in television news audiences. The study found that 33 per cent of Americans regularly get their news online, an increase of 13 per cent from two years ago. Sixty-one per cent of all Internet users, the study finds, go online at least once a week for news. The study found that those who used the Internet for accessing news were watching less television news.
Data on Ireland released last month by Nielsen//NetRatings found that 32 per cent of Irish Web users went online to access news and information.
Technology has allowed the Internet's growing audience to become a huge close-knit community, where you can choose when, how and where you consume news. It may seem a long time since we relied on the main evening news bulletin or the morning paper for our news updates, but change has occurred very fast indeed.
Only six years ago, not one news website existed in Ireland or Britain. In 1994, this newspaper became the first in Ireland or Britain to have a Web presence, basic and limited as it might have been by today's standards. Today, sites of large media organisations such as the BBC, CNN, RTE and The Irish Times, relying on the authoritative brand of their traditional counterparts, are able to deliver their content to a world audience at the convenience of that audience.
One of the last remaining hurdles for Internet news is the issue of credibility. A recent survey in Britain, which on the face of it makes for depressing reading, reveals that only one per cent of Web users there use the Internet as their primary source of news. But both Luke McManus and Bernard Gwertzman believe that sites attached to well-known media organisations are trusted more.
"There's no denying that brands, identities and reputations are crucial. I think established news providers have got a big advantage online, primarily through the public's confidence in them, and also through the experience and quality of the people creating the content," says McManus.
Gwertzman agrees saying "the public judges the source of the information, not the media itself."
One can only surmise what will happen in the next four years. "The Internet is an important part of the future of news, but to say it is the future is an exaggeration," says McManus. "Personally, I find myself consuming more and more information from all media rather than rejecting the traditional ones. And I've bought CDs since I've downloaded Napster too," he adds.
News reporting has made massive strides since 1912. Indeed, it has come a long way since the 1990s. There is certainly room for newspapers, radio, television and the Internet in the news market; whether they converge or compete remains to be seen.
Patrick Logue is the Breaking News Editor at The Irish Times' ireland.com. He can be contacted at plogue@irish-times.com