Journalism sites get in the game

Have we reached the turning point for war? If so, it's not because of any trace of weapons of mass destruction. More likely it'll come when the combined money spent by news organizations -- including on bandwidth for Web sites -- make it an economic disaster if it didn't happen.

Just how itchy are the media for a war, and the media mavens for the Net to lead the way? Let me count the ways:

• Top vanilla sources, AP and Reuters, both filed stories about how the Net will satisfy news junkies during a war with so many viewpoints.
• The Christian Science Monitor made hay by giving one of its "embedded" spots to a writer for its Web site, Ben Arnoldy.
• Every major news site has had special sections on Iraq for months, and the New York Times' special online-only military column from Michael Gordon seems late, by comparison.

Finally, even journalism sites such as the American Press Institute (with an excellent weblog), Poynter, and the Committee to Protect Journalists have offered special online sites devoted to coverage about the war coverage for the war that hasn't started, has it?

Some sort of weird brainwashing seems to have convinced everyone else that it has started, so I'll just go along.

It's true that the Internet has matured to become an important source for news for people around the globe. Nothing beats it for alternative points of view, access to global newspapers and independent press, weblogs and warblogs of every stripe, and discussion boards that would make your grandma turn blue with rage.

And that's the point that I think the wire services miss in their rush to crown the Net as war champion. What gives the Net its edge, its cachet, its juice, is that it's a medium sprung from discussion boards and fueled by e-mail and instant messaging. In short, it's where we kvetch about everything, whether it's a defective kitchen appliance or an oppressive government. A war between the United States and Iraq seems like small potatoes to the online world.

The weblogs that flourished after 9/11 and during the Afghanistan conflict haven't gone away. Though I enjoyed the Reuters piece on the Net's coming role in war, I have to disagree with Caroline Humer's contention that this is the first time the Net will be tested as a breaking news medium. September 11 was much more of a crucible, and the Net proved itself to be resilient and effective -- especially giving space for more viewpoints for more people. A war with Iraq would only build on that.

Setting the record straight

I must apologize for a spate of errors in last week's entertainment column on searching through weblogs. First, despite what I thought, you can indeed search through weblogs alone using Daypop. You also have the option of searching weblogs and news, or news only, or RSS headlines. I'd have to amend my comments to say that they are certainly on the right track.

As for weblogs I found in my search, I made a couple other errors regarding one of them. I misidentified one weblog run by James McLaughlin as being called "The Skeptical Blogger" and of a conservative bent, based on one post about a "conservative alert." Jim informed me of the double blunder, because it's really "A Skeptical Blog" and he's a diehard liberal. Thanks to interactivity and weblogs, McLaughlin got to get his say in spades on his weblog, even citing the OJR Style Guide along the way.

As Chris Plummer notes in an interesting story on CBS MarketWatch, the media (including myself) is learning to live with interactivity, more reader input via e-mails, and so many online forums to be attacked in.

Most importantly, though, I'm thankful that readers can let me know in an eyeblink that I got something wrong -- and when I occasionally get something right.

Mark Glaser writes technology features for TechWeb, occasional features for The New York Times' Circuits section, marketing material for Comcast Online, and a bi-weekly e-mail newsletter for the Online Publishers Association, whose membership includes most major media companies online. That won't stop him from taking cheap potshots at these outlets, when necessary. You can contact him with any juicy tidbits about online journalism at glaze@sprintmail.com.