Log on to the Herald

Editor’s note: This story was published in the Tri-City Herald on May 30, 1996.

Today, the Tri-City Herald joins the newspaper industry’s scramble to the World Wide Web, launching a Web site that provides Mid-Columbia news and information but without newsprint and ink.

With a modem and an Internet account, computer users will be able to read the top regional stories of the day — as well as sports scores, columns, calendar listings, recipes and dozens of other regular Herald features.

The Web page is one element of a new partnership between the Herald and Basin Office Systems of Pasco, a fast-growing Mid-Columbia Internet service provider.

If you’re still reading this the old fashioned way — in paper and ink form — don’t feel backward. Barely 10 percent of the nation’s households have the computers, modems and Internet accounts that allow them to tap into the Web. Not even the hundreds of newspapers worldwide that have launched Web pages can tell if they will turn out to be moneymakers.

But few businesses are better poised to provide information services than newspapers, and none wants to be left behind. Herald Publisher Jack Briggs said the site is a logical extension of services newspapers already provide.

“You have to move with the times,” Briggs said. “We moved to on-line services with our inTouch telephone system, and now the Internet is becoming a major player in disseminating information. We want to preserve our franchise in being the main purveyor of news and information in the Tri-Cities and the surrounding areas.”

The Herald’s Web site, at the World Wide Web address of http://www.tri-cityherald.com, offers the paper equivalent of about 400 pages of information. Present plans are for the site to offer the top local news and sports stories each day, the full text of Herald special projects, an archive of Hanford and Department of Energy coverage, searchable classified ads and dozens of other features.

At the same time, the Herald will offer space on its Web site as part of its advertising package, and will build sites for advertisers seeking a presence on the Web.

Briggs said the Herald’s Web page is the result of two months of work by a special committee of Herald managers and staff under the leadership of general manager Ian Lamont.

The Herald is hardly first in line. About 11,000 newspapers worldwide have launched on-line editions, some 300 of them in the United States, said Christian Hendricks, president and publisher of Nando.net.

“I don’t think it’s a fad,” he said. “I think we’re developing a new medium, and we need to be there earlier rather than later.”

Nando.net, launched by the Charlotte (N.C.) News and Observer, is an on-line newspaper owned by McClatchy Newspapers, corporate parent of the Tri-City Herald. Hendricks said one advantage of online newspapers is they can expand on the news available in print form because the “newshole” is virtually infinite. That gives newspapers the chance to develop new services and interactive functions.

In Washington state, newspapers of all sizes already are on-line with sites of varying sophistication, including the Seattle Times, The (Tacoma) News Tribune, The (Spokane) Spokesman-Review and The (Vancouver) Columbian. Also on-line are a number of weeklies and alternative newspapers, even publications that might not meet the ordinary definition of newspapers.

At Washington State University, Nils Peterson, faculty member in the College of Education, launched a weekly newspaper as a classroom project for his students — the “Palouse NewsNet.” Really less a traditional newspaper than a local information page with links to news sites, it allowed Peterson and his students to see how many pages were offering national and international news.

“I wasn’t surprised at the volume of information available, but I was surprised by the viability of it replacing other news sources,” he said. “The news coming across the Web was at least as current as that on the radio.”

Some newspapers have launched their own Internet subscription services, while others have launched standalone Web sites. What might make the Herald’s venture unusual is its partnership with BOSS, a 50-year old office supply company that entered the Internet business last summer.

Already, BOSS offers listings of community events and resources through its Columbia Basin Virtual Community Project, a listing of community information and advertising at http://www.cbvcp.com/. The Herald site is one click away.

Linkage with the BOSS home page will make it easy to find the Herald site, Briggs said. “There’s a world of information to be tapped into — the problem is finding it.”

In return for promotional considerations, the Herald gets $1 of the $19.95 monthly service charge for each BOSS subscriber within its circulation area.

BOSS owner Penny Jelmberg said the Herald Web site will complement the Columbia Basin Virtual Community Project. “We’re totally sold on what we can do together in the Tri-Cities,” she said. “We’re trying to find a way to make it easier to use.”

Even if the venture turns a profit, Herald managers believe it will never replace the newspaper.

For one thing, it won’t offer the full range of national and international wire service stories published each day. It’s also a bit less colorful than other on-line newspapers — a deliberate decision, said Herald Managing Editor Ken Robertson.

“We might provide fewer graphics than other newspaper sites because one thing that infuriates users is the slow speed with which graphics come up,” he said. “Our goal is to provide quick access to information.”

Also, there’s no way to fold an on-line newspaper; carry it into a coffee shop or tear out the movie listings. Something that makes Briggs feel safe: “They said radio would replace newspapers, they said TV would kill newspapers, they said cable TV would kill newspapers. The fact is that, nationwide, newspaper readership has increased, and this year Herald readership has hit record levels.”

Besides, booting up a computer still takes longer than turning a page.

This story was originally published May 29, 2016 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Log on to the Herald."