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- From: aim-c@cybernothing.org (aim-c FAQ)
- Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.answers,news.answers
- Subject: alt.internet.media-coverage Charter & FAQ [1/2]
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- Date: 15 Nov 1997 10:00:18 GMT
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- Archive-name: internet/media-coverage-faq/part1
- Posting-Frequency: three times per month
- URL: http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/html/aim-c.html
-
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ ___ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ ___ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
- | |
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ _|_ ALT.INTERNET.MEDIA-COVERAGE _|_ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
- | CHARTER & FAQ |
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ _|_ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ _|_ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
-
- By J.D. Falk <jdfalk@cybernothing.org> and Tristan Louis <tristan@dorsai.org>.
- Contributors include David Lesher <wb8foz@netcom.com> and many others.
-
- The current version of this document can always be found at the following:
- WWW http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/html/aim-c.html
- FTP ftp.cybernothing.org
- /pub/jdfalk/media-coverage/media-coverage.FAQ.1
- media-coverage.FAQ.2
- (and, of course, *.answers FAQ archives around the world.)
- EMail Send a message to <aim-c@cybernothing.org> with a subject
- line of "gimme media-coverage.FAQ.1" (no quotes, body will be
- ignored.) Segment 2 would be "gimme media-coverage.FAQ.2"
- USENET Posted three times per month to alt.internet.media-coverage,
- alt.answers, and news.answers
-
- Release 9508.01
-
- TABLE OF CONTENTS (SEGMENT ONE)
-
- I. What is alt.internet.media-coverage?
-
- 1. Which topics are appropriate?
- 2. How do I contact the media?
- A. Press releases
- B. Letters to the Editor
- 3. Statement on advertising
- 4. Statement on copyright
- 5. Official alt.internet.media-coverage archives
-
- II. Journalists' Common Questions
-
- 1. What is the Internet?
- 2. How does it work?
- 3. What can I do with it?
- A. Electronic Mail (EMail)
- B. USENET Newsgroups
- C. Chat (IRC)
- D. Remote Access (telnet)
- E. Information Gathering (FTP, Gopher, and WWW)
- 4. Who is on it?
- 5. Where can I find statistics?
- A. Statistics about the Internet
- B. Statistics about Journalism and the Internet
-
- (SEGMENT TWO -- in the next file or message)
-
- III. Other 'net resources
-
- 1. Related newsgroups & mailing lists
- A. About journalism and/or the media
- B. Local groups
- C. Not actually related (but look like they could be)
- D. Assorted interesting groups & lists
- 2. World Wide Web, Gopher, FTP
- A. Sites with lists of other sites
- B. Assorted interesting sites
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ ___ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ ___ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
-
- "The people who write the news are on the online services.
- The people who make the news are on the Internet.
- Where would you rather be?"
- -- Andrew Kantor, Internet World
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ ___ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ ___ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
-
- I. What is alt.internet.media-coverage?
-
- The newsgroup alt.internet.media-coverage was first created on
- June 15, 1994 by the newsadmin at nova.avid.com for "Discussion of
- how/why/when/where the media covers the internet and its functions." This
- definition was later adjusted to read as follows:
-
- > Discussion of the internet as it relates to television, radio, newspapers,
- > and magazines.
- >
- > There seems to be a growing number of media spots/sound bytes on the internet
- > these days, and I'm attempting to provide a place for this type of discussion.
- >
- > The original idea for this group came from someone in news.admin.misc.
-
- So far, this purpose has held true -- regular readers of the group
- post pointers to articles or upcoming television or radio events, and then
- critique them later. In many cases, the authors of the article or report
- will join in the discussion -- and this, of course, is the future of media
- relations with the public.
- Many of the groups' regular participants work in the media in one
- form or another, and are polite enough to make that clear at the end of
- their messages; however, it should not be taken that they speak for their
- respective companies unless otherwise noted (though a slight bias is to
- be expected.)
-
- I.1. Which topics are appropriate?
-
- As described above, just about anything to do with how "The Media"
- reports on the 'net is germane to this group. Critique a new magazine,
- cc: your letters to the editor, etcetera.
- Often, these critiques will lead towards other discussions,
- including politics, origins of the 'net, semantics, etcetera. This is
- fine, though good netiquette demands that it be crossposted and
- followed-up to other groups before it gets out of hand.
- It is _not,_ in any way, shape, or form, for press releases or job
- requests (and, yes, we've had both.) There are other places for press
- release type material (see below) and there are many *.jobs groups.
- It is also not for advertisements of any type, though we'll let
- short things like "look at the new issue of Massive Media Mogul Magazine
- for an article on the politics of electronic communication" get past
- because they're actually useful.
-
- I.2. How do I contact the media?
-
- I.2.A. Press releases
-
- It is considered /extremely/ bad netiquette to send large messages
- to people, or to add them to mailing lists, without asking their
- permission first. This also holds true with press releases.
- Before beginning to send press releases to anybody, contact them
- with a short, polite message asking if it would be okay to send press
- releases to that account. Even if it's not, they will probably be able to
- tell you which EMail address to send 'em to for the specific publication
- or show that they work for.
-
- I.2.B. Letters to the Editor
-
- The EMail addresses for "letters to the editor," comments,
- questions, subscriptions, or anything like that will usually be found
- within the first few pages of the publication (usually in the same section
- that lists the "snail" mail addresses and fax numbers.)
-
- I.3. Statement on advertising.
-
- Though the debates about commercializing the 'net and allowing
- advertising and so forth still rage on, there is a general consensus
- among experienced 'net users that off-topic advertising (that which does
- not relate to the purpose of the group) should not be allowed.
- There are two main reasons for this. One, nobody wants to be
- forced to read advertisements for products which they would not be likely
- to be interested in. Two (and this one is the most important one of all),
- nobody wants to have to _pay_ for the privelege of reading such
- advertisements.
- Because of that (and because this document is as close as we want
- to get to "rules"), please understand that alt.internet.media-coverage is
- not and will never be the right place to advertise your products. We
- don't mind seeing a short message like "Hi, I'm the editor of Massive
- Media Mogul Magazine, we'll have a big article on USENET in our next
- issue" from time to time -- but be warned that your article _will_ be
- critiqued.
- Anything longer (especially press releases) is not appreciated.
-
- I.4. Statement on copyright
-
- Copyright laws are an ever-changing, usually misunderstood mess
- in the United States, and when you remember that the 'net is worldwide
- then the mess is even worse. So it is possible, though not likely, that
- what I've typed here is wrong. Still, please try to abide by it.
- It is illegal to reproduce an article in its entirety and post it
- to alt.internet.media-coverage or any other group without permission from
- the copyright holder(s) (usually the publisher and/or author.) It is
- becoming quite common for the author of an article to post it to the group
- themselves as soon as they get permission from the editors, and this is
- encouraged so long as the article in question is actually related to the
- Internet and/or USENET.
- It may or may not be illegal, but is definately rude (and should
- be illegal), to quote people's postings to alt.internet.media-coverage or
- any other group in your own articles without permission from the author.
- The mere fact that this group is open to the public is not enough -- you
- must still ask permission first.
-
- For more information, check out the Copyright Law FAQ in:
- FTP charon.amdahl.com /pub/misc.legal/Copyright-FAQ/
-
- There's also a much longer Copyright FAQ at:
- FTP ftp.netcom.com /pub/ca/carollt/law/copyright/faq/
-
- I.5. Official alt.internet.media-coverage archives
-
- The newsgroup archives are accessable at:
- WWW http://www.cybernothing.org/jdfalk/html/aim-c.html
-
- These archives have been processed into HTML, and date back to
- June 5, 1995. There is also a .ZIP (compressed) file containing the
- original textual data of each of those messages.
- Please note that inclusion in the archives does NOT mean that the
- message was appropriately posted to alt.internet.media-coverage in the
- first place; in fact, an unfortunately large number of off-topic messages
- are archived there. For best results, always refer to this document when
- deciding if your message would be appropriate or not.
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ ___ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ ___ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
-
- II. Journalists' Common Questions
-
- Often, journalists will post a message asking for information
- about the 'net. To get you started, here's a few answers, plus pointers
- towards some of the best resources for more information.
-
- II.1. What is the Internet?
-
- The Internet is a network of networks. A network is a group of
- computers hooked up together. In the late sixties and early seventies, the
- American government decided to create a network that would hook up several
- computers throughout the country. This network, know as Arpanet, was the
- precursor to the internet. Shortly thereafter, more universities started
- to hookup to this network. Because each of the universities were running
- different networks, this new Wide-Area Network (WAN) was called the
- Internet for Inter (between) Networks.
- The Internet is not the information superhighway. It is not
- cyberspace. It is the Internet.
-
- II.2. How does it work?
-
- The fundamental base of the internet is a computer tool called
- TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol). TCP/IP is
- essentially the computer language of the Internet. Much like you and I are
- currently conversing in English, computers need a common language. TCP/IP
- allows computers to exchange information easily.
-
- II.3. What can I do with it?
-
- II.3.A. Electronic Mail (Email)
-
- The most popular tool on the internet is Email. It's just like
- writing a letter and taking it to the post office except for a few
- things: you don't have to worry about stamps and envelopes and
- your letter will get anywhere in the world in 3 days or less. In
- most cases, your mail can take no more than 3-4 minutes to get to
- the other side of the globe.
-
- II.3.B. USENET Newsgroups
-
- In the early eighties, some young internauts decided that writing
- to someone by Email was great but that it would be better if you
- shared information through some sort of newspaper. Thus was born
- Usenet, the discussion area of the internet. Take your local
- newspaper and imagine that it is broken down into about 10,000
- sections, (called "newsgroups") each of them covering a different
- subject. That in itself would be pretty impressive. But, what
- makes usenet _truly_ amazing is that not only can you read the
- stories written in each of those newsgroups (they are called
- 'posts' or messages) but you can reply via email to the authors or
- post your follow-up on the article for all readers of the
- "newsgroup" to see. Usenet, in other words, is like a giant
- "interactive" newspaper.
-
- Please note that there is an ongoing debate about whether the
- term "Internet" is truly all-inclusive enough to include Usenet.
- The main argument against it is that not all Usenet-capable
- computers are connected to the Internet, and vice versa.
- Therefore, it is best to not confuse the two terms.
-
- For more information, check out the Bible of USENET at:
- WWW http://www.clark.net/pub/usenet-b/www/home.html
- FTP ftp.clark.net pub/usenet-b/info/bible-faq
-
- Another invaluable reference is entitled "How To Find The Right
- Place To Post," and can be found at (one line):
- http://www.ccs.ohio-state/edu/hypertext/faqs/usenet/
- finding-groups/general/faq.html
-
- II.3.C. Chat (IRC)
-
- Of course, usenet was all good and great but someone decided that
- it lacked _instant_ interaction. So, he or she created Internet
- Relay Chat (IRC for short), which can easily be called the CB
- radio of the internet. IRC was built in a vein that is somewhat
- similar to usenet (see above for description of usenet) with each
- channel covering a particular subject. There are literally
- thousands of IRC channels ranging from the raunchy (#hotsex) to
- the holy (#christian) where people converge to chat for hours on
- end.
-
- Of course, there's a FAQ for IRC as well, at:
- FTP cs-ftp.bu.edu /irc/support/alt-irc-faq
-
- II.3.D. Remote Access (telnet)
-
- If your computer is connected to the Internet, you can (in
- general) log onto it remotely from another Internet location.
- This is called "telnet" or "rlogin". For example, at Internet
- trade shows, the sponsor generally sets up a bank of terminals
- connected to a local computer. Visitors use them to check mail,
- file reports, etc.
-
- II.3.E. Information Gathering (FTP, Gopher, and WWW)
-
- One of the great things about the internet is the amount of
- information that is available. There are essentially 3 different
- ways to read stored information across the internet: FTP, Gopher,
- and the World Wide Web (WWW). FTP, which stands for File Transfer
- Protocol, allows you to exchange computer files. To get such files
- you connect (via the "ftp" command) to an ftp site, a computer
- which stores files. Both programs and references are stored on
- ftp sites. Many sites allow anyone (hence the term 'anonymous')
- to read/copy these.
-
- Internet users often compile sets of information called FAQs
- (pronounced "faks" -- FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions,
- though the term now means any informational document, frequently
- asked or otherwise) and place them on sites so that other users
- can access them easily. In the past few years, many companies
- and governments have also started to make more and more
- information available online, such as text of bills under
- consideration.
-
- A gopher server is essentially an ftp site organized in an easy to
- use menu. By moving arrows up, down, left and right, you can go
- through menus of information without having to worry about the
- internet addresses for the computer on which the information is
- physically stored, or even the filename used to store it.
-
- As powerful a tool as gopher is, it is currently being majorly
- overshadowed and may someday be completely supplanted by the World
- Wide Web (WWW), which takes the interconnectivity of gopher
- servers and adds quite a bit more flexibility. The most attractive
- feature of WWW is that it allows one to mix graphics, text, and
- even sound, music, or moving video on what appears to be one
- "page," or screen of information. Instead of being a simple
- menu-like interface as with Gopher, the World Wide Web can be
- organized in hypertext paragraphs, where all you need to do is
- click on (or otherwise select) a phrase, graphic, etcetera to
- retreive more information on it.
-
- The most popular and best-known viewer program for the World
- Wide Web is called 'Netscape.' Also, for those who do not have a
- fast enough connection or powerful enough terminal to handle all
- the graphics, 'Lynx' is a text-only World Wide Web browser.
- There are a growing number of other browsers currently avaliable,
- including Cello and SuperMosaic, but Netscape, NCSA Mosaic, and
- the University of Kansas' Lynx are the standards by which all
- others are measured.
-
- For more info on the World Wide Web, use your WWW browser and
- access the one of the WWW FAQs at:
- WWW http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html
-
- For more information on Netscape, try:
- WWW http://home.netscape.com/
-
- II.4. Who is on it?
-
- Anybody and, eventually, everybody. Contrary to popular
- stereotypes, the Internet is used by as amazing a variety of
- people as one is likely to meet on the streets of any large city
- -- and also people who avoid meeting people on the streets of large
- cities. Interests and personalities vary widely, and as such the
- only possible pigeonhole into which _all_ 'net users can be
- placed is "they all have at least a rudimentary knowledge of
- computer use."
-
- Some people only have access to Email and Usenet while others have
- what is generally defined as "full access" (access to all the
- services). If one considers Email and News as "being on the
- internet," it is easy to estimate a population of about 20
- million coming from all walks of life. On the other hand, if full
- access is considered, I would hazard a count of about 3-5 million
- hackers, students, academics, and dedicated users. This number is
- growing daily, even if you don't include the major online
- services; for example, in Washington, D.C., USA metropolitian
- area, there are approximately twenty-five totally seperate companies
- offering that type of "full access," with new ones showing up all
- the time.
-
- II.5. Where can I find statistics?
-
- Hearkening back to its roots as a network for educational
- research (but not all the way back to its /real/ roots, military
- communications), the Internet is full of statistics on different
- things.
-
- II.5.A. Statisics about the Internet
-
- Well, as we said above, it's pretty much impossible to garner
- reliable statistics about the users. However, each specific site
- has to be registered with a reliable, nonpartisan system (this
- being the InterNIC), we've found some stastics on the makeup of
- the networks and computers connected to the Internet. A study
- release by the Internet Society in February, 1994 stated that of
- the networks connected to the Internet:
-
- 53% were commercial
- 27% were research (including commercial research)
- 9% were governmental
- 6% were defense related
- 5% were educational
-
- Note that all of these statistics are extremely out of date now.
-
- More statistics about the Internet and related networks can be
- found at the following sites:
-
- Internet Index http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/
- Business Statistics http://tig.com/IBC/Statistics.html
-
- II.5.B. Statisics about Journalism and the Internet
-
- Paul Ross <paul@paulross.demon.co.uk>, a freelance photo-
- journalist, did a data search of the worlds' newspapers and
- magazines in the commercial database service Dialog, looking for
- the number of articles written about the 'net during the 1990's,
- and came up with the following numbers:
-
- Year Mentions
- 1990 2,579
- 1991 3,289
- 1992 5,578
- 1993 11,244
- 1994 79,513
-
- He points out, though, that this listing is not representative
- of /every/ publication, and there is probably some duplication and
- omission (for example, no New York Times.)
-
- Another Paul, Paul Kainen <kainen@netcom.com>, replied:
- "Extrapolating these numbers, by the year 2000, I predict
- the extinction of all life on the planet since we'll be
- buried in 100's of feet of newspapers to accomodate the
- Internet stories!"
-
- A more complete listing of Paul Ross's research is avaliable in a
- seperate file, avaliable via the following:
- WWW http://www.cais.com/jdfalk/html/aim-c.html
- FTP cais.com, /pub/jdfalk/media-coverage/coverage-stats
- _ _ _ _ __ __ __ ___ ___ ____ _______________ ____ ___ ___ __ __ __ _ _ _ _
-
- This document is Copyright (c) 1995 by J.D. Falk and Tristan Louis, all
- rights reserved. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced
- electronically on any system connected to the various networks which make
- up the Internet, USENET, and FidoNet so long as it is reproduced in its
- entirety (either in two parts as here, or combined), unedited, and with
- this copyright notice intact.
-