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Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:17:36 -0500 (EST) From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm> To: Jackie Ammerman emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Message-Id: Pine.3.89.9402032322.L3501-0100000@flagstaff.Princeton.EDU 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.
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