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News Agencies | Newspapers | Cable News | Events and Chat areas | Reference | Criticism | Try it out!

Future of newspapers?

Critics have also raised some important questions regarding the transformation from a modern print to a postmodern electronic culture...Do "new news forums and non print media offer opportunities to improve democracy by permitting public conversations that are not dependent on major newspapers? Also, what is the role of large corporations in this transformation? Do they allow enough different voices and viewpoints into the market?

The tide of influence may be shifting from print to alternate forms of media. Larry King's talk show on CNN played a journalistic role in both the 1992 and 1996 presidential election by giving third-party candidate Ross Perot a platform. In 1994, Rush Limbaugh's radio program became a forum for airing the Republican Party's Contract with America. The nineties have also seen furious competition for young readers weaned on moving images in a highly visual culture. Since most major newspapers are now available via interactive computer services and the Web, the old battle lines between print and electronic culture need to be redrawn.

News Agencies

News agencies and services provide information to all the news outlets, and many of them are establishing an internet presence as well. This is useful if you have an area or country of interest that is not well covered in your local newspaper.

• Reuters
• Associated Press
• Panafrican News Agency
• Air Force News Agency
• Bloomberg Online

Newspapers

These newspapers serve a broad readership across the country and have been noted for their national and coverage. Although somewhat self-promtional, their focus is clearly on presenting the news. All newspaper sites are updated daily, some during the day on a regular basis. Photos, graphics, and, on occassion, audio and/or video clips are part of their presentation.

• The New York Times
• USA Today
• The Washington Post
• The Wall Street Journal Although available on the Internet, a service fee must be paid to make use of all offerings.

Although local newspapers, many of these have a national reputation and have won awards for their reporting. Search for and bookmark your local paper.

• The Boston Globe
• Chicago Tribune The Daily News http://www.mostnewyork.com/ Knight-Ridder Newspapers Includes links to all their newspapers and affiliates. The Star Ledger Los Angeles Times Denver Post

• BONG Bull The weekly encyclical of the Burned-Out Newspapercreatures Guild

• The Village Voice

• Pioneer Planet
• The American Reporter A six-day-per week electronic "newshare" owned by the writers whose work it features.
• The Internet Newspaper Funded by the Casper Star Tribune (St. Louis) but is not yet its online counterpart. Features only national and regional news.
• The Nando Times

Cable News

Additional cable news channels are listed under cable -- the links page.

• CNN
• C-SPAN
• ESPN
• MSNBC
• ABC News
• CBS News
• FOX News
• PBS Newshour

Events and Chat areas

Several browsers and online services offer special events or opportunities to enter into a "live" conversation with someone in the news media: a news anchor, correspondent, writer, producer, or newsmaker, for example. Some services even offer the top headlines on their home page.

Most services and browsers also offer bulletin boards where you can post comments or pose questions on a specific topic, issue or event, and chat areas where you can enter into live conversations with other people from around the world, in a discussion of News Events. Some of these include: America On-Line. Compuserve and Prodigy often offer news anchors, reporters and newsmakers for an evening Live chat Netscape Navigator, Yahoo and other browsers or search engines offer a number of events and chat areas to discuss newsmakers and news stories. Further, these also highlight top news stories when you sign on to the service, open the browser or use the search engine.

Some of these include:

• Online Services: America Online, Compuserve, Prodigy, and the Microsoft Network often offer entertainers and newsmakers for an evening live chat.

• Browsers and search engines: Netscape, Yahoo, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and other browsers or search engines offer a number of events and chat areas to discuss entertainment and news stories.

• News Sites: CNN Chat, and MSNBC Chat

• There are two excellent Web resources for locating newsgroups and mailing lists. But don't forget your netiquette if you decide to join in!
  • DejaNews is a search engine for newsgroups. As with a Web search engine, entering keywords will return links to newsgroup articles that contain your keyword.
  • Liszt, the mailing list directory, is a guide to a wide variety of mailing lists (complete with instructions on how to join them).

Reference

The following are just a few of the resources are available on the Web They provide reference materials, information and links.

• Society of Professional Journalists
• Latino Link National Association of Hispanic Journalists
• National Press Club
• Reporters Internet Survival Guide
• Media Source

Criticism

Criticism of the media is nothing new, and those groups who have long been critical of what we see in television programming--particularly the news--have Web sites as well. For additional resources see Media Ethics.

• Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) FAIR is the national media watch group which offers well-documented criticism in an effort to correct bias and imbalance. FAIR publishes the magazine EXTRA!, the radio show CounterSpin, and the syndicated column Media Beat, by Norman Solomon.

• Accuracy in Media (AIM) AIM investigates complaints of media misdeeds and works for higher standards in reporting. The Web site includes articles from their bi-weekly publication.

• Media Alliance A nonprofit organization which works to promote fairness and accuracy in the media. They also offer classes in an array of media diciplines and post job openings.

• Media Watchdog A collection of electronic resources related to media accuracy and censorship.

• Bronx Beat Online Produced by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism students.

• Columbia Jounalism Review

• National Press Club The Pulitzer Prize

• HotWired MagazineGo to the Synapse section of the site, and bring along the latest browser version you can find. Look especially for Jon Katz on how the media covers Internet news (before Synapse, his column was called "Media Rant").
• Slate
• Feed Magazine