15 years ago the American journalist and university lecturer Joshua Quittner published his idea of a ‘way new journalism’ within a mere 7,000 signs. What must have seemed like a glimpse into the crystal ball of online journalism at the time, reads like a quite visionary manifest today. In his essay published in 1995, Quittner predicts many of the major developments of recent years – from podcasts to weblogs – to become important tools for the future’s ‘way new journalism’.

What has to change to improve storytelling?
Quittner recommends five innovative elements and stylistic devices which could liven up informative textual work in the new medium Internet. One of them is ‘the element of surprise’. The idea is to spark the readers’ curiosity with picture material and alluring short texts (teasers) so that they will be tempted to click on the corresponding text and read on. Today this stylistic device is common practice in online journals.

Another element is the ‘sudden narrative’. The key argument for this feature is that ‘reading on the screen sucks’. For this reason, articles should not be any longer than 250 words, i.e. the entire text should fit on the screen. This avoids information overload with the readers. However, even today the claim to keep texts relatively short is not always fulfilled. But in comparison to traditional journalism, web texts and their design have changed dramatically.

In-detail information and a voice for the reader
As a third element Quittner lists ‘voice’ which means that readers are granted a say. The possibility to address the journalists by e-mail or to share an opinion makes the author-reader relationship more intimate. Online news portals offer this possibility as a regular feature and many blogs practically count on their readers to leave a comment so that an eye-to-eye dialogue can evolve.

‘Hypertext links’ are Quittner’s fourth stylistic device: as a special service for the readers different texts should be linked with each other by means of marking certain key words with a hyperlink. This allows the reader to retrieve more in-detail information on a certain topic or other publications revolving around the same key word. And this is the exact way that hyperlinks are used in textual work today.

As the fifth and final stylistic device Quittner presents the ‘instant reaction’ which can be provoked by linking to an appropriate Usenet forum or an Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Here, readers can discuss the topic of an article among each other and with the author. IRC and the Usernet forum may be outdated technologies, but online magazines have set up their own forums to engage in discussions with their readers. A chat channel for articles is not common yet. Blogs have already gone one step further by offering readers and author the opportunity to leave comments in order to discuss a topic, even though it may not be in real time as in a chat.

A journey into the unknown
‘We just have a Web site … and empty space that extends infinitely. How do we fill it? What works? Will anything work?’ asks Quittner at the end of his article. These questions came up during a class he taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, too. Along with his students he wanted to prove his theory. ‘I’ll let you know when we find an answer’, he promises the readers of his article. Now, 15 years later, the veil of uncertainty has definitely vanished to a great extent.

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