Gerald M. Levin, the chief executive officer of AOL Time Warner, has the luxury of viewing the information landscape from the media mountaintop. And like Moses descending from the heights with the Ten Commandments, Levin recently visited the University of Southern California to unveil his own Top Ten list.

The occasion was the first annual Walter H. Annenberg Symposium, named for one of the first media executives to recognize the value of convergence. By combining publishing and broadcasting, he made a fortune with TV Guide.

Levin was a fitting choice to give the first lecture in honor of Annenberg's legacy; as chairman of Home Box Office in 1975, Levin's decision to distribute the premium channel via satellite helped to create the modern cable TV industry. He now leads a convergence conglomerate that includes America Online, Time magazine, the Warner Brothers movie and TV production studio and the Cable News Network.

David Letterman needn't worry about Levin as competition for his nightly monologue. This Top Ten was more like a survival guide for the age of the Internet. Here's Levin's list with my tongue-in-cheek translation to help you read between the lines:

In the long run markets may be rational. However, in the short run they are not always right. Translation: Never mind all those dying dot-coms, we didn't need them anyway.

The Internet changes everything. Translation: Move over, network programmers: the consumer is now in charge and you will have to reach the mass audience one user at a time, preferably on AOL.

The enterprises that will succeed in this new digital world are those that are capable of reflecting the realities of a constantly changing environment. Translation: Never mind the dip in our stock price, we're big enough to outlast, outplay and outwit everyone else.

The reality of 'anywhere, anytime' access to broadband digital networks is going to make our lives freer and fuller. Translation: Those who control the Internet will control the government.

Unlimited access implies greater responsibility. Translation: Parents and teachers are on their own when it comes to protecting kids from sleazy content.

Unlimited access implies greater responsiveness. Translation: People get really steamed if you don't accept their Instant Messages.

Literacy is key in the digital economy. Translation: Don't get caught on the wrong side of the growing digital divide.

The challenges of digital empowerment in the 21st century cannot be solved with approaches from the 19th century. Translation: Getting government approval for the AOL Time Warner merger was a bitch.

Corporations must live up to their obligations to society. Translation: We think that we can serve the public interest and our shareholders at the same time. Yeah, right.

Technology is only an instrument. Translation: Content is king and we've cornered the market by owning the means of production for movies, music, television, publishing and original Web programming.

Levin also called for government regulators to find common ground with giant media corporations. Although it sounds an awful lot like saying that what's good for General Motors is good for the nation, that's how it appears from the mountaintop. It's a different story for those former CNN and CNN.com staffers who find themselves down in the valley -- in the unemployment line.

Even as the AOL chief called for voluntary corporate responsibility, rival Yahoo! was testing the waters for a venture into the pornography business. And how much can the consumer be in charge if the future offers little more than a choice between the cross-promoted output of behemoth content providers like Time-Warner, Viacom and Disney?

Only a few days before Levin's visit to USC, another media titan was surveying the convergence landscape from the campus of California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. On the road to promote a new book, 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt envisioned the future of network TV news.

'Pool all three networks,' Hewitt suggested. He feared that profit-driven corporations might kill their individual news divisions to improve the bottom line, so why not cooperate to produce one national newscast? He went on to explain that 'quality' news programs survive only when they have no competition, like the News Hour on PBS.

Yes, Don, but they also have tiny audiences in comparison with commercial network shows that go for the highest possible rating. And we all know what happened when the three major commercial networks pooled their exit polls for the November 2000 presidential vote count: the biggest media gaffe since 'Dewey defeats Truman.'

Hewitt confessed that he's puzzled when his grandchildren pass up TV to sit in front of the computer. Then again, back in the golden age of radio, he didn't think television would amount to much. It didn't take long for the CBS legend to change his strategy and invent many of the storytelling conventions we take for granted when we watch TV news today.

But network news is not faring well in the corporate world of convergence, according to a report by Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post. Disney is cutting back at ABC News, with veteran reporters like Sheila MacVicar and Morton Dean among the first to go. Confronted by Ted Koppel in a meeting with news staffers, Disney chief Michael Eisner declared that no one can expect immunity from company-wide layoffs, including the Disney animators who feel they are 'the heart and soul of the company.'

A panel preceding Levin's lecture at USC provided additional evidence that convergence has been a bumpy road. Joseph Russin, assistant managing editor for multimedia at the Los Angeles Times, stated that the Tribune Company is 'still not realizing the dream of one newsroom, many platforms.'

A videotape demonstrated how little synergy exists between the newspaper and Tribune's local broadcast outlet, KTLA-TV. Gleeful morning news anchors were shown shredding a copy of the Times because of a report that was critical of the station's performance in the February 2001 ratings sweep. Russin went on to describe television news as 'newspaper lite,' pointing out that the Times has a newsgathering staff of about 1,000 while the TV station only fields half a dozen crews in the city at any given time.

Indeed, a look at latimes.com shows that the only link between the two is a tiny KTLA icon that leads users to the TV station's separate and unequal Web site. Still, Tribune has managed to spread its newsgathering content across multiple media platforms in Chicago and Orlando.

But, in the jargon of convergence, no one has figured out how to 'monetize' this information and avoid 'napsterizing' it. Convergence reporter for Inside.com Ben Berkowitz noted that pricey subscriptions weren't enough to save his employer, which is merging with what's left of Brill's Content.

Content development consultant Julia Frazier, formerly of the now-defunct FasTV.com, had a warning for this year's graduates from journalism and communication schools: They couldn't be entering the job market at a more confusing time. Frazier said those who dream of providing original content for the Web should resign themselves to merely recycling the newsgathering efforts of traditional print and broadcast media until better technology makes real convergence possible for the average user.

Which brings us back to Gerald Levin's lofty vision of a better future. Acknowledging that the AOL Time Warner merger has confused some Wall Street analysts, Levin compared his company to 'a flying fish who enjoys going for a run once in a while.' Sorry, but we don't have a translation for that. It must all make sense up on the mountaintop. Updated: Friday, April 20, 2001.