How the Media Wrestle With the Web

The Iranian protests, as globally significant as they are, lack foreign reporters — if standards are to be bent, better to do it there, one could argue, where there is a need for news, any news. Of necessity, Twitter and YouTube became tools for coverage of the Iranian protests, whether on the Lede blog of The New York Times or CNN's iReport Web site. And it may be hard to turn back. The Iranian protests may turn out to be the gateway crisis that introduced traditional news outlets to the thrill of harnessing the Internet during breaking news, whether serious or celebrity. Indeed, the Iranian hostage standoff 30 years ago was the gateway crisis that led to incessant TV coverage of news, first on ABC's Nightline and later CNN and the rest of the cable news networks.