Has the Internet "hamsterized" journalism?

[Commentary] Hey there newspaper reporter—has your broadband-powered job got you filing not only conventional stories, but blogging, video blogging, Facebooking, podcasting, picture posting, and Tweeting? If so, you'll be happy to know that the Federal Communications Commission earned its keep this week by coming up with a term for this ever growing set of digital duties: the "hamsterization" of American journalism.

"As newsrooms have shrunk, the job of the remaining reporters has changed. They typically face rolling deadlines as they post to their newspaper's website before, and after, writing print stories," the FCC notes in its just released report. The good news about this online convergence, the survey observes, is that it allows print journalists to produce short and longer versions of stories, the web versions of which can be continuously updated as the situation develops. But, "these additional responsibilities -- and having to learn the new technologies to execute them -- are time-consuming, and come at a cost. In many newsrooms, old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting -- the kind where a reporter goes into the streets and talks to people or probes a government official -- has been sometimes replaced by Internet searches." Thus, those "rolling deadlines" in many newsrooms are increasingly resembling the rapid iteration of the proverbial exercise device invented for the aforementioned cute domestic rodent.