We asked three college students for their takes on the job AOL is doing in presenting the news and working with its media siblings.

Amy Johnson, a 22-year-old senior from Fairfax, Va., who attends George Mason University, has been an AOL member for more than six years. She uses the service for e-mail, news and research throughout the day.

"I like AOL news because my Welcome Screen gives me up-to-date local and national headlines," Johnson says. "If something big has happened, AOL lets me know the minute I sign on. As I've gotten older, I've become more aware of the news and enjoy the one-stop shopping AOL has to offer for the news."

	"When I want real news, I'll go to CNN, MSNBC or WashingtonPost.com. When I want things like horoscopes and fashion news, I'll head to AOL." -- Nileah Shanti Bell, 21

A savvy news consumer, she likes the Web's immediacy and sometimes checks both AOL and WashingtonPost.com for different angles on a story, as when the last Osama bin Laden videotape came out. She also likes AOL's varying depths of coverage on a given subject: She can skim headlines, glimpse news summaries, read an entire article or dive in for even further depth with a related sidebar.

"What I don't like about AOL news is that sometimes I don't have any national news on my Welcome Screen," Johnson says. "When I sign on, I'd much rather see a headline, picture and story about the fires in California than celebrity gossip about what Rachel is going to name her baby on 'Friends.' I want hard news, not soft news. It's embarrassing that people consider Britney Spears smoking a cigarette to be news!"

Johnson and the other students interviewed seemed perplexed when I asked about the news sources they see on AOL. "I get the sense that AOL gets all of its stories from AP," Johnson says. "I don't see stories from CBS, CNN or Time on AOL."

Nileah Shanti Bell, a 21-year-old from Alexandria, Va., who's a classmate of Johnson, concurs. "I know that while I haven't read anything from CNN or CBS on AOL, I always find celebrity stuff from People," she says. "When I want real news, I'll go to CNN, MSNBC or WashingtonPost.com. When I want things like horoscopes and fashion news, I'll head to AOL."

Clearly, synergy or convergence or whatever is the preferred jargon du jour has not yet trickled down to AOL's readership.

Community and interactivity as key components

Shellie Branco, 21, just finishing her junior year at the University of Southern California, seems typical of many younger readers who rarely read the newspaper or watch television news. She turns to Yahoo! for news headlines and AOL for news, e-mail and instant messaging.

"The story that sticks out most in my head from the past month is the death of TLC singer Lisa Lopes," she says. "I grew up with her music, so when I read the AOL headline saying she's been killed in a car crash, I got up out of my desk chair and told my roommate, and we were both kind of shocked.

"It was the same with the death of the Queen Mother, and Arafat being stuck in his compound surrounded by Israeli troops. I read it on AOL and then ran to tell people about it. When Princess Diana died, I was one of millions who e-mailed a sympathy note to the royal family on a message board."

Interactivity is a big AOL selling point to Branco. "I really love their special editions for elections and other important events, when I get a chance to jump into chat rooms and have my say among lots of people from across the country. You can get an awesome perspective by chatting with someone who's close to the story's action, like with a Florida resident after the 2000 election."

While AOL may not always promote a fully immersive interactive experience, it should get points for user-generated content. A Welcome Screen blurb the other day teased to a "soapbox commentary" by an AOL member on the Middle East crisis.

Branco doesn't click on the news video feeds on AOL because she has a dial-up modem. And she mixes her praise for AOL news with some pointed criticism.

"I don't like what they've done with the news section, which used to be more prominent," she says. "Now the main focus of the Welcome Screen is devoted to some lame diet-of-the-week or Ozzy Osbourne's show. I know that bombings in the Middle East aren't fun to read about, but it's important news and should be more prominent on the main screen."

Ah, yes, the infamous Welcome Screen. AOL insiders say it's the subject of never-ending discussion at company headquarters, for it serves multiple purposes: table of contents, marketing, advertising, news, entertainment, personal services.

But more often than not, it's the fluff that receives the biggest play. Britney breaks up with Justin! ? Wedding Bells for Ally? ? Steamy Sex Scenes -- Find our top picks to help spice up your bedroom!
 
Here's another suggestion for a teaser:

Poll: Does AOL believe all 34 million of its members are morons?

Apparently editorial values haven't seeped too far into this particular corner of the AOL empire. Check out, for example, the rotating blurb at the bottom of the Welcome Screen. Is it editorial, or is it advertising? The answer is: both! A teaser to AOL's Careers & Work section rotates with ads for Citi Platinum Select Card and an ad for a Sharp Viecam Camcorder. If you're a job-seeker, don't click that mouse too slowly or you'll wind up in ad land.

NEXT | The manager: "Our users are telling us they want more news"