The history of digital journalism (understood as the publication of content on the Internet, not as the process of digitizing information) can be spread over a period of two decades.
The media approached the web in the same way they did before the emergence of other media. At first, with disbelief and with fear that the “new medium” will kill its predecessor. In fact, this debate has not yet ended and, together with the problem of profitability of online editions, they constitute the most important topics of interest for owners and workers of the digital press.
The media began to approach the web to publish content between 1993 and 1995 and the first medium to do so was from the United States. According to Pablo Boczkowski (in his book Digitizing News ), “newspapers in the United States, in their search for alternatives to mass consumer-oriented print publication, went from exploring a series of possibilities in the 1980s to the establishment in the web approximately in 1995 ”.
For example, in May 1993, the American newspaper The Chicago Tribune began to be published digitally through the Online / AOL network; In November 1994, the British Daily Telegraph took its version online.
According to Alejandro Rost, between 1995 and 1996, the web received “a barrage” of news sites and “in August 1996, according to UNESCO, there were more than 1,500 newspapers and magazines available online, of which 1,400 used the World Wide Web.
On the other hand, Machado da Silva and Christofoletti said, “the publication of news on the web started in 1994, when the virtual version of the American journal The Nando Times emerged. Not Brazil, first published in the Jornal do Brasil, as of May 1995. Since then, all the major national newspapers have created their online versions, initially only republishing content circulated in printed editions every day”.
At present, it would be impossible to try to estimate the number of online publications (newspapers, magazines), either – in what we could call according to the terms popularized by Marc Prensky – of the “native” publications (born and thought in the web, such as huffingtonpost.com) and the “immigrants” (traditional media that began to publish their editions on the Internet).
In the search for their own discourse, the media turned journalistic materials of their printed versions into their first online versions (even the arrival of radio and television media on the Internet was very early) and, over the years, they were making continuous redesigns that would allow them to improve not only the information architecture and the navigability of their content but also add new narrative resources (interactive infographics, audiovisual content, related links, etc.) and 2.0 functionalities (such as, for example, RSS aggregators, the possibility of posting comments, blogging, and, currently, social media integration) to adapt to the digital ecosystem. An aspect of great importance in this “adaptation” is the integration or not of the redactions of the printed and online versions of a medium, which is being experimented on.
One of the prime examples of modern magazines that have managed to set themselves apart and have quickly grown to become popular over time is the British Herald. Under the management and direction of Ansif Ashraf, the British Herald has become one of the leading online publications that focuses on a variety of topics, ranging from politics to sport. It has risen to the top of the ranks and is now regarded as one of the leading publications in the UK.
The magazine was personally launched by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Lord Ranger serves as the Patron, and it’s easy to see that there are some big names who make sure that the authenticity of what is published remains firm. The publication also has partnerships with the Galaxy Group in China as well as media partnerships with the Asia Polo Cup.
