Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!gatech!bbn!bbn.com!levin From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Is the news media really that stupid? Keywords: ignornace, money, power, the usual stuff Message-ID: <33346@bbn.COM> Date: 9 Dec 88 21:01:59 GMT References: <33065@bbn.COM> <4355@pbhyf.PacBell.COM> <5999@hoptoad.uucp> <1942@sigma.UUCP> <6023@hoptoad.uucp> <885@hdr.UUCP> Sender: news@bbn.COM Reply-To: levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin) Organization: BBN Communications Corporation Lines: 26 In article <885@hdr.UUCP> eric@hdr.UUCP (Eric J. Johnson) writes: | . . . For a start, I can see two reasons for this |alleged occurence: | | One: Ignorance. News professionals do not know about USENET |and bulletin boards, and if they did, they couldn't understand them anyway. | |Computer professionals often flatter themselves into thinking that |they hold some special 'magical' ability to understand the uses of their |computers that 'mere mortals' could not possible achieve. |This, more often than not, leads to a condescending attitude towards |non-techies on or off USENET. Take a look around you. Computers are being |used everywhere by non-computer professionals, ESPECIALLY THE NEWS |MEDIA! . . . Yes, computers are everywhere, and people use them as tools. But what they don't understand, most of them, are networks. I believe computer communications media like Usenet go way beyond what a user who does his or her newpaper article or checkbook on a computer might comprehend. Communications to them is dialling a number to download the stock market data or upload the article. /JBL UUCP: {backbone}!bbn!levin POTS: (617) 873-3463 INTERNET: levin@bbn.com