{
  "id": "1996-march-e-tv-stations-on-line",
  "slug": "1996-march-e-tv-stations-on-line",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-march-e-tv-stations-on-line.html",
  "year": 1996,
  "month": "March",
  "monthNum": 3,
  "headline": "E-TV: Stations on-line",
  "kicker": "On the Internet",
  "author_name": "Nora Paul",
  "author_title": "",
  "affiliation": "Poynter Institute for Media Studies",
  "summary": "Television stations are increasingly establishing online presence with rich content including news scripts, investigative reports, editorials, photos, and searchable archives, moving beyond initial public relations-only websites. The article provides examples of innovative e-TV sites and resources for accessing broadcast news content.",
  "keywords": [
    "television",
    "internet",
    "news"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Journalism & Newsroom",
    "Technology",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Internet",
    "World Wide Web"
  ],
  "full_text": "Television stations have been considered late-bloomers in the use of computers both for reporting and research, as well as in the area of delivering alternative news products. But they are catching up quickly in both areas.\n\nWhen television stations first came to the 'net, it was primarily as a public relations tool. There was information about the news anchors and some of the programs.\n\nNow, many television stations are developing rich and unique deposits of information, reports and graphics, which supplement their nightly newscasts. In increasing areas of the country, researchers interested in how local news organizations have covered certain stories can check not just the print organizations, but the broadcast offerings as well.\n\nFinding E-TV\n\nThe best site for locating both national and international television sites on the Internet is TV Net (http://tvnet.com/TVnet.html). There are links to U.S. and World TV Home Pages.\n\nA national archive of network television news transcripts can be found at Vanderbilt University (http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/). Searchable abstracts and summaries of the daily network news programs.\n\nWhat TV offers on-line\n\nScripts of news programs: Didn't catch the name of the doctor mentioned in the package on a new cancer treatment? Get the text from the TelePrompTers and find it:\n\nWISC-TV NEWS, Madison, Wis. http://www.wisctv.com/news.htm News scripts from the 6 p.m. news program for the past week.\n\nKLAS-TV, Las Vegas, Nev. http://www.infi.net/vegas/KLAS-TV/news.html Scripts from all the various daily newscasts for the past week and a very informative guide on how to read TV scripts.\n\nInvestigative Packages: The text and, sometimes, frames from the video from large investigative stories are being posted on some E-TV sites.\n\nWDIV-TV, Detroit, Mich. http://www.wdiv.com/special.html Investigative reporter Mike Wendland is providing the text of the stories he's investigated and the background data used in reporting the story. The explanations of how the data were found and analyzed are great lessons in computer-assisted reporting. Wendland has just completed a book on Internet research for broadcast journalists.\n\nEditorials:\nKCBS-TV, Los Angeles, Calif. http://www.kcbs2.com/ Weekly editorials are posted (with a box for sending comments attached at the end) and there is an archive of the editorials for the past eight months.\n\nPhotos: Some sites are making interesting use of photos:\n\nWHNT-TV, Huntsville, Ala. http://www.whnt19.com/weather/towercam.html Hourly photos of the weather in the hill country of Huntsville from the Tower Cam (and it will show radar system images in severe weather). There is also a nice link of other sites with camera shots available.\n\nArchives of news stories:\nKPIX-TV, San Francisco, Calif. http://www.kpix.com:80/news-archives/ News databases, accessible by sophisticated search engines, are new developments for most television stations. This one lets you search the text of news stories.\n\nThis column is taken from \"Computer Assisted Research: A guide to tapping on-line information,\" third edition. If you would like a copy of the guide, contact the Poynter Institute for Media Studies: 801 3rd St. S., St. Petersburg, Fla. 33701, or call (813) 821-9494. There is a paper version: $5 for the pages, $10 for the pages and a three ring binder, and there is hypertext version on disc for $5 (indicate Mac or PC).\n\nNora Paul can be reached at (813) 821-9494, or send e-mail to npaul@poynter.org",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "extracted_at": "2026-07-05",
    "verified": true
  },
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  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/1996-march-e-tv-stations-on-line.html",
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}