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Does the Internet Spell the End of Journalism as We Once Knew It?

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By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. – Oscar Wilde ________________________ (Note: This article, in a slightly different form, was originally posted on JI , July 11, 2009.)   On a typical day, as I check my Facebook timeline, I am served up a menu of human interest stories, hard news; selfies; memes (political, comic, inspirational); videos of dancing cats; links to sites, most of them biased toward my point of view; family news; mild cheesecake photos shared by one friend; inspirational shares by friends and acquaintances; and comments by friends. I have noticed that the outrageous, the extreme scenarios, seem to rule as breathless memes shout out the latest stupid and outrageous politician remark (on my timeline, Sarah Palin seems to be the most popular former-politician celebrity to deride). Then there are the blogs I visit, some offering industry news and others pushing their own product

Electronic Newspapers Circa 1981 -- Two Hours to Download

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So you think your internet connection is too slow... Go back to 1981, and you will see how far we have come since then. While the “internet” has existed since 1969, it really didn’t trickle down to the masses until the first browser Mosaic was released 12 years later in 1993, introducing “The World Wide Web.” Even then, it took a few years for users to update their computers and increase memory to accommodate the memory-hog browsers. I believe we acquired our first internet-ready computer in 1996-1998. Funny. I can’t remember exactly when – it all seems so organic now. I remember the antiquated dial-up system when I worked in the tech department of a college library; the tech department was responsible for doing data base searches for profs. You actually placed the phone receiver on the modem, which then connected you to a data base ( LexisNexis , etc.). Once you had your info, you would print it out on fan-fold paper with sprocket holes and send off to the packet to the pr

Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment