To hear some people tell it, Internet is a prodigious trove. Unfortunately, the treasure's behind a locked door - and the lock keeps changing.
By now, almost everyone knows what's in there: government documents and regulations, discussion groups, libraries, experts on everything. But knowing how to find what you need, and how to get it, consistently - that's the sticking point. For journalists with little patience and even less time, the result can be frustration.
Yet as the network continues to grow, so do its uses. And the successes of the net's most consummate users are giving their warier colleagues reason to take another look.
Internet's usefulness for gathering information in a crisis is unparalleled. It buzzed with live reports during the Tiananmen Square uprising, the Gulf War and the Soviet coup attempt to name a few examples. Michael Meiners, database specialist for the Sun-Sentinel, utilized the system's capabilities to contact people involved in the recent Indian rebellion in southern Mexico.
"We were able to contact local people and get first-hand accounts as well as a perspective that was not available through conventional media resources," he said. "The reporter was able to conduct interviews over the Net and ended up writing an excellent column."
Of course, Internet has proven useful during American crises as well, providing contact with people when all other lines of communication were down. After January's earthquake in Los Angeles, Neil Reisner, database editor for The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record, went online and logged some real-time conversations with survivors. Reisner also went a step further, checking an Internet site that tracks earthquakes around the world. The result was an immediate story with an unexpected international perspective.
During political crises and natural disasters, Internet is an obvious source for information. But advocates say the network's more mundane applications are its greater strength.
Meiners described how a reporter at The Tampa Tribune utilized the net to arrange a meeting with a source in Cuba who would have been unreachable by phone or mail. Entire interviews via Internet are becoming more common daily.
Another strength unique to Internet is its people-finding capability.
"I use PROFNET all of the time; it's one of the greatest tools I know," Reisner said. The database gives reporters access to the public relations departments of scores of universities nationwide.
"People use PROFNET to find out who can talk to you intelligently on a certain topic," explained Barbara Semonche, news librarian at the University of North Carolina, "The public information officers can check and see if they have someone who is an expert in this area. The reporter can then contact them directly."
USENET newsgroups, which most Internet users can tap into, provide access to an even larger pool of people. According to the latest statistics, there are now more than 7,800 USENET groups worldwide. Through them, reporters can locate people with almost any agenda, hobby or experience, discover local sources or just lay low in hopes of picking up story ideas.
Although much of the information on the net is also available through online databases and through printed sources, Internet offers some unique added conveniences - assuming users know what they're doing.
"Believe it or not," said Meiners, "one of the most successful uses I have found was to find complete texts of song lyrics or poetry."
The net offers help for weightier queries, as well. Favorite databases among journalists include FedWorld (a gateway to hundreds of federal agency bulletin boards), the Library of Congress, FEC campaign finance records, SEC filings, White House schedules, speeches, news briefings, U.S. Supreme Court decisions and census data.