As more eyeballs and ad dollars migrate to the Web, there is anecdotal evidence that both traditional and non-traditional news organizations are finally beginning to invest more heavily in their online news platforms. And certainly their rhetoric is designed to show Wall Street that they understand this is where their future lies.

A closer look, however, suggests it is wise to continue to raise questions. Are the investments being channeled toward improving news content? Is the innovation in journalism or mainly in technology? Do the journalism companies have it in their DNA to make the kind of innovations that will keep them as journalism’s leaders in the new century? And will mature journalism businesses be given the leeway by Wall Street shareholders to make the kinds of investments and gambles that their high-technology rivals — who are stealing their audience and their advertising but do not produce the content — are being capitalized to make?

One issue we addressed in last year’s report was the nature of this investment. Looking at the major players it seems to be taking two forms.

One is investments in personnel — people power, to gather more information, do more original reporting, synthesize material already in the public domain.

The other is investment in technology to improve the gathering, sorting and disseminating of news and information to the consumer.

For many news sites, a combination of the two could be best. Sites from traditional news outlets like the New York Times or CNN.com offer a good deal of original reporting, which requires a significant, continuing investment in news staff. But those sites are also working to offer the reporting in the most usable form, particularly for the Web, and that demands an investment in non-news staff and technology of the sort that new-technology companies are making.

So far — and there are some exceptions— it may be that investments in personnel are not keeping up with expenditures in technological and software capital, which do not necessarily improve the quality of reporting. The challenge may be even harder in years to come, because news organizations that employ those who produce the content for news sites have made major cuts in their editorial staffs over the last few years.

Meanwhile, other sites like Google and Yahoo do either no original reporting whatsoever or have just begun to publish original content in a very limited form. Their service is generally to help the user sort through what is already out there and ultimately find that relevant piece of information.

To get a fuller sense of the major players’ commitment to quality information, let’s look at two major types of online news providers: the traditional news producers and non-traditional news aggregators.