That is just one example of the explosive growth of online news. But the time has long, long since passed when the internet was just another place to publish a newspaper, or duplicate a broadcast bulletin. The mushrooming medium is a news-provider in its own right, and what is more, it belongs just as much to the consumers of news as to the producers of it. This entirely new phenomenon first appeared in the late 1990s, when a handful of internet addicts started to put together websites featuring their own view of world or local events. Some were little more than personal diaries, while others were rants and diatribes against the existing order. They were called weblogs, a word soon contracted to blogs. The first ones were scrappy, self-indulgent affairs, not much noticed amid the tumult of internet developments. In early 1999, a specialist website in the U.S. offered a definitive list of weblogs. There were just 23 of them.

Today, a Google search using the words “news blogs” returns 278 million findings – at least, it did the day I tried; there will almost certainly be more by now. The addition of the initials “UK” whittled the figure down to a mere 34.5 million. Clearly, that reflects a huge number of duplications and multiple references to single sites, but it still illustrates the explosive growth of a new medium. To look down the other end of the telescope, so to speak, the specialist site britblogs.com lists 3,830 British blogs, which is certainly a good deal fewer than the real total.

Some quite learned studies have been published – on the internet of course – defining the arts and sciences of blogging. Most simply, blogs are blocks of information and comment assembled by the blogger, and published by him or her on a personal website. They are platforms for bloggers to record their own interests and views. They may be narrowly confined to a single subject – pop music is a common choice – or they may ramble freely through the blogger’s random thoughts. Website design varies vastly according to the blogger’s talent, or lack of it. The one feature common to all blogs is that they are spattered with links to other websites and internet locations. They are the snowballs of the internet, steadily growing as they roll round the web community, gathering more links and comments from users, and becoming attached in turn to other sites.

Famous example

The point has not been lost on the more imaginative news providers, who see to it that their customers have lots of chances to participate. Letters, forums, chatrooms, quizzes are just some examples. Also, the better news-sites are exploiting the possibilities of screen-based technology to expand their offering way beyond a simple reproduction of a newspaper or broadcast. Guardian Unlimited, which for obvious reasons is the site I know best, has for years provided its users with original material: audio reports, graphics, commentaries, newsletters, special reports and so on. (It’s still ahead of the game: the company’s new blog – comment.is.free@guardian.co.uk – a rolling comment site, again breaks new ground.)

In the same spirit but in reverse, so to speak, the BBC’s incomparably wonderful website includes masses of written material as well as access to radio and video. It is also pushing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) which allows users to identify the particular content they want, and have it regularly delivered to their computer in a custom-built package. Similar in concept is the latest advance in internet technology and probably the next big thing in media development: the podcast. Taking its name from the ubiquitous Apple iPod device, podcasts – essentially audio or video files placed on the internet for anyone to subscribe to – can be downloaded on to personal computers and handheld devices and replayed at leisure. And, with little more than a microphone, users can become podcasters themselves, as well as podlisteners and podviewers.

Although some readers might feel they are drowning in an ocean of jargon and juvenile language, it’s worth remembering that the internet, in all its manifestations, still relies on the written word. The fact that it appears on a screen and not on paper makes no difference to this eternal verity and it is especially true of news provision. Of course, websites can offer all kinds of dazzling extras, such as video clips, masses of illustrations and graphics, and almost limitless access to further information about any topic.

The vital difference between screen and paper is speed. Websites can respond to news in what my dear old mother describes as two shakes of a lamb’s tail. A news flash can be on screen in seconds, pictures in a few seconds more. In the age of the mobile phone camera and video devices, stories can be illustrated dramatically and all but instantaneously. What’s more, the two-way factor means that news coverage will increasingly flow from, as well as to, the user. We are already seeing the impact of digital photography, especially in mobile phones. Images of the carnage under London’s streets last July 7 were sent to newsrooms within minutes and published within the hour. But instant reporting of this kind doesn’t necessarily have to be “citizen journalism”. Trained reporters, too, can cover events on the internet almost instantly using only a mobile phone. Websites can offer ball-by-ball cricket coverage, football goals as they are scored, constant updates on breaking stories and much, much more.

Clearly the internet is going to have a continuing and growing effect on the circulations and audiences of the conventional news media. A new generation, already in adulthood, is attuned to the electronic media, and adept at using them. They wouldn’t dream of stuffing a Daily Mirror or Telegraph into their coat pockets, where it might interfere with access to mobile phone and iPod. But although their choice of medium is different, their choice of journalism is the same as it always has been. There are, among web users, Sun readers as well as Guardian ones; punters who turn first to the racing tips; fashion followers who want to see the latest styles, and soap addicts who can’t get too much gossip. Indeed, to coin a phrase, all human life is there.

And the web news-trade is beginning to come to terms with a problem that has puzzled its management for years: how to make money out of the thing. It is deeply rooted in internet culture that information and entertainment should be available free, and so most of it remains, although the newspaper-based sites are beginning to offer paid-for services. Most crossword puzzles, for example, are available on-screen for a small fee. The Guardian has a range of email-newsletters available for a modest charge. Websites also carry an increasing amount of advertising. As online shopping becomes ever more popular, so does online marketing. The problem is that some of this has been cannibalising newspaper ad-revenues, so those involved in both media could be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Advertising departments are reluctant to discuss sales figures in detail, but it has become common for packages of both hard copy and screen space to be offered to advertisers. Guardian Unlimited has hit on a wonderfully cheeky way of raising money from advertising. As well as charging for the ads, it offers its ad-adverse users a strictly ad-free version of its site for £20 a year.

Nice one, comrades

But these are matters for commercial folk. Journalists should be much more concerned with the quality of the information on offer in all news outlets. To state the obvious, that quality varies wildly on the internet, just as it does in print. And, to pursue a hobbyhorse of mine, it strikes me that we are all increasingly following a common news agenda. The papers pick up on the radio and television news, the broadcasters pick up newspaper stories, and the internet feeds on both. In our electronic newsrooms, where reporters compile stories rather than go out and report them, there is increasing reliance on a common pool of information. There is also, it seems to me, less and less difference between what we used to call the popular and serious press. All are convinced that the Big Brother house is of vital interest to their readers, that the Academy Awards deserve coverage in depth, and that photographs of attractive young women automatically attract the punters. That holds true for websites, in spades.

In some ways – heretical though it may be – web pages are actually easier to read than modern papers. They tend to be less cluttered with fact boxes, quotes in bigger type than the body text, little mugshots of the writer and other annoyances. If a newspaper sub-editor wants to refer you to a related article on another page, you naturally have to turn the page to find it. On the internet, he or she will provide a hyperlink, which puts the second item just a mouse click away – and that item, too, will likely be sprinkled with more links. And an important aspect of the internet that makes the paper-versus-screen debate a trifle redundant is that most text can be formatted in a way that makes it child’s play to print out as hard copy. It doesn’t look like a real newspaper copy, of course, but here the website is a true source of the written and printed word.

The exponential growth of internet journalism has contributed to another concern about quality: the standard of writing. In the early days the emphasis was on mastering the technical complexities of the new medium, and the content was largely lifted from existing newspaper copy, agencies and other sources. However, over the past few years, more and more original content has been generated by editorial staffs that are typically young and enthusiastic, but not very experienced. Nor do many of them appear desperately concerned about such trifles as spelling and punctuation. After all, in the age of the text-message and the wretched spellchecker, why bother turning to a dictionary? The possibilities for the printed word on the web may be infinite, but there’s a whole new generation of journalists missing one vital ingredient of print newspaper journalism – the joys of being taunted by grizzled old subs.