If online news increasingly appears central to journalism's future, the question of newsroom investment becomes critical in looking ahead. Indicators in 2004 suggested that if organizations are investing at all, they are doing so cautiously.

First, in the spring of 2004, the Pew Center for the People and the Press and the Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted a survey of American journalists, including members of the Internet press. Among online journalists, 62% said the size of their newsroom staff had decreased compared with three years earlier. That dwarfs the 37% of national print, TV and radio journalists who reported the same thing.¹ [1]

Second, anecdotal evidence suggests that companies that invest are doing so by downsizing in some areas and expanding in others. At Reuters, for example, executives are putting their money into the processing of online news as opposed to the gathering of it. Those are very different elements, the first an investment in equipment and the second an investment in staff.

Tom Regan, executive director of the Online News Association, says his work with people in the industry has convinced him that the number of bodies in online news organizations is fewer than it was during the boom of the late 90s. That despite the fact that online news is now becoming profitable and serves a much larger audience. The software has developed to a point, he explains, where fewer and fewer people are needed to write code and get the stories up on the Web.

Howard Finberg of the Poynter Institute agrees there are fewer bodies, but sees greater cause for concern in the substitution of automated technology for people.

Finberg also thinks that online news media need to invest more in the way people use the Web rather than just becoming a replica of newspapers. He and Regan agree that one of the obstacles to growth is that online producers in general still don't think "intelligently" about the Web and its potential as an information tool.