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.