Online journalism offers new possibilities for presenting the news, but it won't make print extinct. Or will it?

"The two mediums will coexist because print will be different. The newspaper will become a much softer product with much less hard news," said Ralph Lowenstein, UF Dean Emeritus.

World Wide Web consultant Wayne Garcia showed SJI students how to look up personal information about people on the Internet. He also urged students to start online publications, but he does not think print journalism is dead. Photo by Heidi Noble.

The Internet comes with many advantages.

Unlike print, there are fewer space constraints, allowing more room for in-depth articles and photographs. A newspaper reporter has to hold a scoop until the next morning. With the Internet that same reporter jumps ahead of the competition.

"People can choose to get information any way they want. [The Internet] provides another venue," said Carolyn Bower of the Tampa Tribune. "If we don't, someone else will."

Distribution boundaries cease to exist online. Readers view the Sunday Jerusalem Post at their homes in New York on Saturday evening.

While the advantages of online journalism seem threatening to print, Wayne Garcia, a media consultant who spoke at SJI, said "print won't ever go away."

Newspapers don't come with chunky manuals. And who lines the bottom of Tweety's cage with a computer?

"You can't take [a computer] in the bathroom," Garcia said. You also can't buy a computer, modem and Internet account for less than a dollar.

At least not yet.

The future is uncertain as to how people will receive their news.

"We don't know what's happening," said William McKeen, UF professor of journalism. "Things are changing fast."

Computers and the Internet will have a growing role in the publication of news, experts agree. They don't agree, however, on the extent of this role.

"Computers will be like watches," said David Carlson, the director of UF's Interactive Media Lab. "You will see small portable devices that are hand-held and wireless, to go wherever you want."

"Newspaper circulation is declining, papers are shrinking and prices are going up," he said.

The Internet will not annihilate newspapers in the near future. Technology remains very expensive, complicated and inaccessible, Lowenstein said.

"That needs to change."