From emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm Thu Feb 3 23:24:50 1994 remote from awwe Received: by awwe.UUCP (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Fri, 04 Feb 94 02:13:03 EST for root Received: from emory.mathcs.emory.edu by emoryu1.cc.emory.edu (5.65/Emory_cc.3.4.16) via SMTP id AA22131 ; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:24:47 -0500 Received: from Princeton.EDU by emory.mathcs.emory.edu (5.65/Emory_mathcs.3.4.18) via SMTP id AA07633 ; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:24:40 -0500 Return-Path: nancyamm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Received: from ponyexpress.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.104/princeton) id AA01679; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:17:38 -0500 Received: from flagstaff.Princeton.EDU by ponyexpress.princeton.edu (5.65c/1.113/newPE) id AA11797; Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:17:37 -0500 Received: by flagstaff.Princeton.EDU (4.1/Phoenix_Cluster_Client) id AA11048; Thu, 3 Feb 94 23:17:36 EST Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:17:36 -0500 (EST) From: Nancy Ammerman To: Jackie Ammerman Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chapter 10: NEWS OF THE WORLD 10.1 Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert. Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not the way most people would think of them. But there are several sources of news and sports on the Net. One of the largest is Clarinet, a company in Cupertino, Calf., that distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service devoted to computers and even the Dilbert comic strip, in Usenet form. Distributed in Usenet form, Clarinet stories and columns are organized into more than 100 newsgroups (in this case, a truly appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for example, clari.news.gov.taxes. The general news and sports come from United Press International; the computer news from the NewsBytes service; the features from several syndicates. Because Clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems carry its articles. Those that do carry them as Usenet groups starting with "clari." As with other Usenet hierarchies, these are named starting with broad area and ending with more specific categories. Some of these include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news, politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by Mike Royko, Miss Manners, Dave Barry and others (clari.feature); and NewsBytes computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb). Because Clarinet started in Canada, there is a separate set of clari.canada newsgroups. The clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer types (clari.nb.apple, for example). Clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock. There are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories: clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent. Clarinet also sets up new newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like). Occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just don't seem to belong there. Stories about former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by Dave Barry. This happens because of the way wire services work. UPI uses three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code. 10.2 REUTERS This is roughly the British equivalent of UPI or Associated Press. Msen, a public-access site in Michigan, currently feeds Reuters dispatches into a series of Usenet-style conferences. If your site subscribes to this service, look for newsgroups with names that begin in msen.reuters. 10.3 USA TODAY If your host system doesn't carry the clari or msen.reuters newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way over the Net. USA Today has been something of an online newspaper pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across the country for several years. Cleveland Free-Net provides the online version of USA Today (along with all its other services) for free. Currently, the paper only publishes five days a week, so you'll have to get your weekend news fix elsewhere. Telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or freenet-in-b.cwru.edu After you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: NPTN/USA TODAY HEADLINE NEWS. Type the number next to it and hit enter. You'll then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and telecommunications. Choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu, listing the ten most recent dates of publication. Each of these contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular subject. 10.4 THE WORLD TODAY, FROM BELARUS TO BRAZIL Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are American radio stations that broadcast to the former Communist countries of eastern Europe. Every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those countries, which is then disseminated via the Net, through a Bitnet mailing list and a Usenet newsgroup. To have the daily digests sent directly to your e-mailbox, send a message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write: subscribe rferl-l Your Name Alternately, look for the bulletins in the Usenet newsgroup misc.news- east-europe.rferl. Daily Brazilian news updates are available (in Portuguese) from the University of Sao Paulo. Use anonymous ftp to connect to uspif.if.usp.br Use cd to switch to the whois directory. The news summaries are stored in files with this form: NEWS.23OCT92;1. But to get them, leave off the semicolon and the 1, and don't capitalize anything, for example: get news.23oct92 Daily summaries of news reports from France (in French) are availble on the National Capital FreeNet in Ottawa, Ont. Telnet to freenet.carleton.ca and log on as: guest. At the main menu, select the number for "The Newsstand" and then "La presse de France." 10.5 E-MAILING NEWS ORGANIZATIONS A number of newspapers, television stations and networks and other news organizations now encourage readers and viewers to communicate with them electronically, via Internet e-mail addresses. They include: The Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass. sysop@news.ci.net The Boston Globe voxbox@globe.com WCVB-TV, Boston, Mass. wcvb@aol.com NBC News, New York, N.Y. nightly@nbc.com The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa, Ont. ottawa-citizen@freenet.carleton.ca CJOH-TV, Ottawa, Ont. ab363@freenet.carleton.ca St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times 73174.3344@compuserve.com Illinois Issues, Springfield, Ill. gherardi@sangamon.edu WTVF-TV, Nashville, Tenn. craig.ownsby@nashville.com 10.6 FYI The clari.net.newusers newsgroup on Usenet provides a number of articles about Clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest to you. To discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new electronic medium, subscribe to the Computer Assisted Reporting and Research mailing list on Bitnet. Send a mail message of Subscribe carr-l Your Name to listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet. Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253