Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:814 news.misc:1644
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nfsun!ditka!dasys1!cucard!ccnysci!dan
From: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.misc
Subject: Re: Netnews, USENET's composition, and "real" newswires
Summary: Journalists need good information
Message-ID: <844@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 88 13:39:57 GMT
References: <465@nbc1.UUCP> <8898@netsys.UUCP> <4242@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu> <466@nbc1.UUCP> <4274@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Reply-To: dan@ccnysci.UUCP (Dan Schlitt)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 28

I want to back up what Erik says about the benefits that would come
from more journalists reading USENET.  And agree with a previous
writer that they won't because they already have too much information
to keep track of.  In my experience it also takes a bit of
explaination to get them to understand the significance of a lot of
technically oriented information.

I base this on my personal experience.  A very good friend is the
editorial page editor of a modest sized daily.  (The editorial page
staff is two people.)  I frequently passed on copies of articles from
sources such as PHYSICS TODAY and ACM publications which I thought would 
interest him.  (This was when I lived in the same city he does and saw him
several times a week.)  I didn't have access to USENET then so I
didn't pass on things from that source.  Now that I live half a
country away I send him less, but there are many articles from USENET 
which I have printed out and mailed to him over the last year.

The result was frequently a long conversation about the significance
of the information which touched on lots of related issues. Now it is
a telephone call.  Sometimes something appeared on the editorial page 
and sometimes not, but the level of comment on technical issues on that 
editorial page is well above average.

In a technophobic society I think that this sort of activity is a
professional responsibility.  It is too bad that almost the only
contact elected officials, journalists, and the like have with
technical folk is when we are promoting something.