I've consulted journalists' opinions on this matter (on alt.journalism and in the Nieman Foundation on the WWW) and they overwhelmingly disagree with this concern. Since professionalism in journalism is not dictated by an academic degree, the true professionals are those who submit their knowledge, skill, and coherence in a news-based medium, and they are more interested in demonstrating these qualities in presenting the news than receiving fame and recognition in the process. As for issues of democracy, the state of authorship on the WWNS will be less than universal (after all, not everyone has access) but still very collaborative. Many journalists are eager to see what happens to the journalist's perspective in this enhanced medium.

One notable exception arose: freelance journalists, by definition, are not part of a news organization and will have a more difficult time fitting in. Economics are very important to a reporter who is paid on a per-story basis, and so the prospect of sharing payments for shared information is unappealing. The WWNS would have to structurally distinguish themselves from news services so that independents have as much access to resources. Because they are less constrained by bosses, freelance reporters are already more willing to use the resources on the Net and can be ahead of the game when the WWNS rolls around.

The nomad-like approach of freelance journalists and the relative anonymity of journalists in the WWNS raises an important and heretofore unanswered question of accountability. If someone commits libel or another serious mistake, who is held accountable? It is very difficult to point to a single person when articles have a largely democratic authorship. And since the news is no longer confined to a single location like a newspaper, there is no one editor or even publisher to blame. Does the entire WWNS get sued? It's difficult to tell how exactly a large journalistic system will handle accountability and other legal issues. A legal department is obviously necessary, but how will supervision be implemented?

The WWNS is a medium without awards, fellowships, and Pulitzer Prizes; if the presentation of facts become the driving force of the system, will individual pride be destroyed? Many respondents say yes because there will be little to no individuality when journalism enters the Internet lines. Journalistic authorship will be a democratic phenomenon like never before. The idea of shared information goes beyond a collection of individual reports; the WWNS implies interaction among journalists before a story is released. The idea presented here can be likened to the idea of home pages on the Web; each is a unique collection of perspective, yet at the same time is a manager of contacts and resources. On the WWNS, each reporter is his or her own home page, with personal contacts and advantages.

Another issue at hand is the impact of the WWNS on different styles of news. Will diversity of news be maintained, or will they become a homogeneous stack of news in online form? The WWNS can really go either way. On one hand, there are diverse needs among the readers (hard news, business and sports data, human interest stories), suggesting that the reporters will continue to give the readers what they want. On the other hand, the numerous linkages will intertwine these types of stories so well that there will be no distinction among stories, which is a sharp contrast to the ultimate separation of news stories, those four differently colored sections of USA Today. The unlimited space of an online news service will certainly not exclude forms of news, however. Even tabloid journalism is likely to transfer over to the WWNS. (Unless every article is moderated, but that seems too difficult an option.)