Stealing the newspaper: How the web changed everything for news

When the internet and the web, as we know it, burst into the mainstream in the mid-1990s, the media industry, more than any other, was forever and irrevocably transformed. News media, in particular print newspapers and magazines, have been the most visible symbol of this disruption as the internet toppled a business model that had made many a man and woman rich and powerful for more than 100 years. This chapter pinpoints the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing as a milestone moment in digital journalism as print media’s brand-new websites scrambled to break the news online, beating out their own newspapers and setting in motion the tectonic shift by newsrooms and audiences to the principle of “digital first,” which continues to this day. This chapter also examines how three decades of newsroom experiments with online technologies coalesced into this moment and how journalism was never the same again.