The biggest problem with broadcasters websites is that they are just cut-and-paste from their teleprompter. There is usually no more content online than what was aired, despite the fact that the time constraints that limit the broadcast script arent there on the web. When they push "see us on the web" there's really no reason to if there is no additional content to see. They simply arent geared to take advantage of the opportunity in front of them, and that's been the World's web advantage -- sofar.
I watched "Facchhhhkkkkkkkxxxxzzzzzzzz 23" this morning for about an hour, and realized what a monumental waste of an opportunity their news block is.
Having been there, done that, the news model is based on a 5-12 minute audience turnover, and the rates are based appropriately on the percentage of viewership, that's a given. (The repeat of the weather forecast every 6 minutes tells me that it may be less than that, either that or I should be insulted because some consultant somewhere in his parents' basement doesn't think I'm smart enough to remember what just ran a few minutes back.)
There has been a couple of attempts on the part of Facchhhhkkkkkkkxxxxzzzzzzzz 23" to do some relevant, investigative journalism, but it usually winds up being something shocking (titillating?), like the number of massage parlors that operate in Tulsa or sitting in a parking lot taping some hooker a block away talking to a potential customer ,and these are run during the fall or spring ratings sweeps.
To set up an investigative unit that actually covered something other than massage parlors would take a major commitment in dollars and other resources, and Griffin Communications has come the closest to that with their unit in our local markets.
But as viewers can see every morning, instead of some real meat being produced and people made uncomfortable by a real exposure of a fact that will make someone, somewhere, in power perhaps squirm over their morning coffee and consider packing for a quick trip, the general format is talking heads, and rescued dog stories. This being led with, as patric pointed out, the cut and paste crime and wreck headlines. But, ". .if it bleeds, it leads".
There will always be a place for the journalist who really digs, and presents deep background, and in that vein, I think the "newspaper' faction of the 4th estate will survive in some form, and this is probably going to be where the Whirld will wind up. But the print production of the business, as we have already seen, is not going to be so much a factor in the coming future.