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  OnlineNewsWatch is a blog that follows developments in the ever-changing landscape of online journalism. It is edited by Vera Haller, an assistant professor of journalism at Baruch College.

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A New York Times article today describes an interesting battle brewing between the sports world and the news world. Developments in the way sports stories are reported is causing tension between the teams and the news organizations covering them.

According to the article, with bloggers detailing every word and news Web sites posting slideshows and videos, sports executives are looking to limit this ever-growing coverage - and drive fans to their team Web sites.

So the Times asks, “Who owns sports coverage?” Some sources in the stories suggest that these disputes may end up in court.

That the younger generation seeks out its news from different sources is hardly new, but The New York Times today takes it a step further. An article states that young consumers are spreaders of news, especially in the realm of politics. Here’s an excerpt:

“According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well - sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter - reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com - with a social one.”

The article underscores the fact that the ease with which the Internet allows the transfer of information is leading people to get to their news in non-traditional ways.

Each year, the Project for Excellence in Journalism releases a report that analyzes the status of journalism in the U.S.  So obviously, I clicked straight through to the section abut news on the Web.The findings aren’t surprising. More people are going online for news, more people are watching video online and no one has figured out yet how to make a lot of money off of news Web sites. News about foreign events (particularly the war in Iraq) filled a larger news hole on major news Web sites than in other news outlets.

The editorial part of  news organizations were credited with being innovative in finding ways to use new technology. The report criticized Madison Avenue for not moving more quickly to find ways to make advertising pay on news Web sites.

The section on the major trends  identified by the study is important reading for all who work - or those of you looking to work - in the news business.

Blogs are good for many things, among them giving journalists a forum to focus on a particular subject. This blog is an example. It gives me the opportunity to write about changes in the news business.

Blogs also allow journalists to tell the story behind the story, to go into detail or to shoot off on a tangent in ways traditional news stories wouldn’t allow. The Iraq story has spawned many a journalist blog – most of them offering up painful stories of life behind the headlines. The New York Times is the latest to launch such a blog, Baghdad Bureau. The item I read, about a platoon of U.S. soldiers about to go home, provided vivid reporting with photos and audio clips from individual soldiers.

In another such blog, Baghdad Observer, McClatchy Newspapers Baghdad bureau chief Leila Fadel recently posted a poignant item about the isolation felt by the 13-year-old son of an Iraqi  colleague. The NBC News bureau also blogs at Blogging Baghdad.

The war also has inspired non-journalists to write. Take a look here at a directory of blogs and diaries from Iraq compiled by Yahoo.

What is sometimes lost in discussions about the current state of the news industry is how the shift to the Web has created opportunities for powerful storytelling. The ability to report using words, images, video and audio means news organizations can draw people into a story like never before.

To find compelling coverage on the Web, take the story in Kenya. For many people in the United States, a news story from Africa may seem remote and, perhaps, not of the highest interest. But spend time on the YouTube channel created by NTVKenya, a television news station, and the importance of the story will be driven home. There are heartbreaking reports such as this one about children being separated from their families because of the violence.

Other interesting Web coverage is being done by a young photographer/blogger, Lameck Nyagudi, whose photos are featured on the BBC’s Web site.  Nyagudi also has a blog and supplies photos to africanews.com.

 When I used to work night rewrite at the New York bureau of The Associated Press, I remember having to write running leads on developing stories such as political debates and award ceremonies.The idea was to watch, take notes and then write a lead while the event was still going on so that newspapers would get an early version of the story before their deadlines. It was a nerve-wracking and tricky task.

So it is with sympathy that I read the efforts of live bloggers, who now write blow-by-blow accounts of political, entertainment and sporting events. Obviously, the style of writing is different from what I used to do. Bloggers can be more casual and opinionated. The reasons for writing in real time have changed, too.

From what I can gather, live blogs allow Web sites to stay on top of the news as it happens and they act as a platform to engage users in real-time discussions. These are valid reasons to run live blogs, but I’m struck by how fleeting the posts are. Barely is the debate or game over and the entries seem obsolete.

This doesn’t seem to discourage news organizations from pursuing the practice. With public interest running high in the current presidential race, it seems like everyone is live blogging the debates. Take a look here at recent posts by usatoday.com and nytimes.com.

The live blogs are intense work. The “On Politics” blog on usatoday.com covered the 90-minute Republican debate in Florida with posts at 9:15 p.m., 9:25 p.m., 9:40 p.m., 9:58 p.m., 10:02 p.m., 10:17 p.m., 10: 30 p.m. and 10:47 p.m. I’m sure it wasn’t too much past 10:47 p.m. that the blog was replaced as the main link about the debate.

Politics is not the only area where live blogging occurs. Hollywood award ceremonies are another inspiration for live blogging. The recent SAG awards had any number of bloggers giving running accounts of who looked fabulous and who didn’t.  I’m also sure we can expect some sports writers to be opining and observing during this weekend’s Super Bowl.

Certain annual events lend themselves to extensive coverage on the Web. Take, for instance, movie award ceremonies (in years when labor disputes don’t curb the festivities, of course). These glitzy, Hollywood events inspire Web editors to beef up their celebrity photo coverage, and in turn their Web traffic. Who can resist slide shows of red carpet fashions, especially if they’ve been organized by best and worst dressed? 

But Hollywood doesn’t have a lock on irresistible slide shows. Detroit, yes Detroit, has a stake in this market. Every January, the North American International Auto Show in Motor City (this year it is being held Jan. 19-27) inspires an even larger outpouring of multimedia coverage. To get an idea of what I am talking about take a look at the whole Web site created by MSN. The Detroit News also has extensive coverage. Here is one of the many video reports already up on the site: 

  

Another Detroit News video is about the proliferation of bloggers, such as writers for autoblog.com, who are also covering the show. Now there’s an example of where the industry is going: a newspaper doing a video report on bloggers!

The Detroit News site also has any number of slide shows – from concept cars to new production models. And the list goes on. All this coverage is sure to result in a big spike in its Web traffic numbers.  

The role of political blogs in the presidential campaign crystallized for me while watching television coverage of Iowa caucus results on Jan. 3.  Flipping through the channels, I paused at an MSNBC interview with Ed Rollins, GOP candidate Mike Huckabee’s national campaign chairman. Rollins was being questioned about an item on the conservative political blog, townhall.com, describing what its writer, Amanda Carpenter, “overheard” of his conversation at lunch earlier in the day.

For the purpose of this blog entry, what Rollins supposedly said (and ate) isn’t what interests me. What I found striking was that a major news outlet was basing an interview question on something that had been overheard and reported by a blogger. Obviously, the competition in the political blogosphere will be intense during the campaign. Bloggers will be aggressive in their posts in an effort to stay ahead of  the competition. Once an item is “out there,” it will be fair game to be raised by all other media.