Chapter 13). The total cost for seven minutes was US$6.00, which

included the cost of a long distance call to Oslo. I read some stories, while they scrolled over the screen. All was captured to a file on my hard disk for later study. The size of this file grew to 32.000 characters, or almost 15 single-spaced typewritten pages (A-4 size). If I had spent less time reviewing the lists of available stories, seven minutes would have given a larger file. When I had entered my user ID and password, a menu of stories came up on my screen. The headline read "News from CompuServe." The two first items caught my attention, and I requested the text. One had 20 lines about an easier method of finding files in the forum libraries. The other had ten lines about how to write addresses for international fax messages. The command GO APV brought me directly to Associated Press News Wires. You'll find such tricks by reading the online services' user manuals. This command produced the following menu: AP Online APV-1 1 Latest News-Updated Hourly 2 Weather 3 Sports 4 National 5 Washington 6 World 7 Political 8 Entertainment 9 Business News 10 Wall Street 11 Dow Jones Average 12 Feature News 13 Today in History I entered "9" for business news, and got a new list of stories: AP Online 1 Women, Minority Businesses Lag 2 Child World Accuses Toys R Us 3 UPI May Cancel Worker Benefits 4 Drilling Plan Worries Florida 5 UK Stocks Dip, Tokyo's Higher 6 Dollar Higher, Gold Up 7 Farm Exports Seen Declining 8 Supermarket Coupons Big Bucks 9 Cattlemen Tout Supply, Prices 0 Tokyo Stocks, Dollar Higher MORE ! The screen stopped scrolling by "MORE !". Pressing ENTER gave a new list. None of them were of any interest. Pressing M (for previous menu) returned me to the APV-1 menu (the videotext page number is given in the upper right corner of each menu display). I selected "World" for global news, which gave me this list: AP Online 6 Two Killed In Nagorno Karabakh 7 Yugoslavia Fighting Rages On 8 Storm Kills Five In Japan 9 Afghan Rebels Going To Moscow? 0 19 Killed in Guatemala Quakes MORE !8 Oh, a storm in Japan! Interesting. I was due to leave for Japan in a couple of weeks, and entered 8 at the MORE ! prompt to read. A screenful of text was transferred in a few seconds. "This is for later study," I said, pressed M to return to the menu, and then ENTER to get the next listing: AP Online 1 Bomblets Kill American Troops? 2 No Movement On Hostage Release 3 Baker Plans Return To Syria 4 Baker, King Hussein To Confer 5 Madame Chiang Leaving Taiwan? 6 Baker Leaves Syria for Jordan 7 Klaus Barbie Hospitalized 8 Iraq Denounces U.S. Threat 9 Yelstin Said Resting At Home 0 SS Auschwitz Guard Found Dead MORE ! Here, I used another trick from the user manual. Entering "5,6,9" gave three stories in one batch with no pauses between them. Five screens with text. If I had read the menu more carefully, I might probably also have selected story 0. It looked like an interesting item. "This is enough of the Associated Press," I thought, and typed G NEWS. This gave me an overview of all available news sources ("G NEWS" is an abbreviation for "GO NEWS," or "GO to the main NEWS menu"): News/Weather/Sports NEWS 1 Executive News Service ($) 2 NewsGrid 3 Associated Press Online 4 Weather 5 Sports 6 The Business Wire 7 Newspaper Library 8 UK News/Sports 9 Entertainment News/Info 10 Online Today Daily Edition 11 Soviet Crisis First, a quick glance at 6. The service presented itself in these words: "Throughout the day The Business Wire makes available press releases, news stories, and other information from the world of business. Information on hundreds of different companies is transmitted daily to The Business Wire's subscribers." Then #7: "This database contains selected full-text stories from 48 newspapers from across the United States. Classified ads are NOT included in the full-text of each paper." The list of newspapers included Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle (known for many interesting inside stories from Silicon Valley). Choice 8 gave news from England. There, I selected UK News Clips, which gave the following options: U.K. News Clips 93 stories selected 1 RTw 09/19 0818 YUGOSLAV AIR FORCE HITS CROATIAN COMMUNICATIONS 2 RTw 09/19 0755 CROATIA BATTLES CONTINUE AS EC PONDERS PEACE FORCE 3 RTw 09/19 0753 ARAB PAPERS SAY MOSCOW WANTS MIDEAST PARLEY DELAYED 4 RTw 09/19 0749 DOLLAR STANDS STILL, SHARES DRIFT LOWER IN ... 5 RTw 09/19 0729 EARNINGS GLOOM REVERSES LONDON STOCKS' EARLY GAINS 6 RTw 09/19 0716 SOVIETS NEED 14.7 BILLION DOLLARS FOOD AID, EC SAYS 7 RTw 09/19 0707 IRA SAYS IT KILLED TIMBER YARD WORKER IN BELFAST DOCKS 8 RTw 09/19 0706 BRITISH CONSERVATIVE CHIEF PLAYS DOWN TALK OF ... 9 RTw 09/19 0630 FINANCE RATES 10 RTw 09/19 0603 REUTER WORLD NEWS SCHEDULE AT 1000 GMT THURSDAY ... The numbers in column four are the release times of the stories. They flow in from the wires in a continuous stream. Next stop was the UK Newspaper Library. Here, you can search in full-text stories from The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, UK News (with selected stories from The Daily & Sunday Telegraph, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times/Sunday Times, Today, The Independent, Lloyd's List and The Observer). Searching the UK Newspaper Library costs US$6.00 for up to ten hits. You get a selection menu of the first ten stories found. A menu with an additional ten stories costs another $6.00, etc. You pay US$6.00 to read the full text of selected stories. These rates are added to CompuServe's normal access rates. The news service Soviet Crisis was my final destination. This was just a few weeks after the attempted coup in Moscow, and I was eager for reports. I found the following interesting story from OTC NewsAlert: OTC 09/19 0750 FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE SOVDATA DAILINE IS LAUNCHED This selection gave me three screens with information about a new online service. Briefly, this is what it said: "The SovData DiaLine service includes an on-line library of more than 250 Soviet newspapers, business and economic periodicals, profiles of more than 2,500 Soviet firms and key executives that do business with the West, legislative reports and other information." It also said that part of the database was available through Mead Data Central (Nexis/Lexis), and that it would be made available through like Data-Star, FT Profile, Reuters, Westlaw, and GBI. Undoubtedly, the name has changed by the time you read this. Finally, a fresh story about the fate of KGB. I read another fifty lines, entered OFF (for "goodbye CompuServe"), and received the following verdict: Thank you for using CompuServe! Off at 09:03 EDT 19-Sep-91 Connect time = 0:07 Seven minutes. Fifteen typed pages of text. US$6.00. Not bad! An overwhelming choice ---------------------- I am confident that your "daily online newspaper" will contain other stories. If you're into computers, you may want to start with Online Today, CompuServe's daily newspaper. It brings short, informative news stories about the computer industry. NewsBytes is another interesting source for computer news. It offers global headline news from its bureaus around the world. The articles are sorted in sections called APPLE, BUSINESS, GENERAL, GOVERNMENT, IBM, REVIEW, TELECOM, TRENDS and UNIX. A favorite! Newsnet is also available through Genie, ZiffNet on CompuServe, NewsNet, Dialog, in the newsgroup clari.nb on Usenet, and various BBS systems around the world. I read it through a Norwegian BBS (EuroNet in Haugesund). For general news, start with major newswires, like Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Xinhua, Reuters, and the like. You will find them on many commercial services including NewsNet, CompuServe, and Dialog. FROGNET - The French Way ------------------------ If you know French, check out FROGNET. This French language service brings daily news from Agence France Press, and often has added excerpts from the French dailies. FROG is distributed by the services of the French embassy in Washington. It covers world affairs, European and French items, assembled, naturally, from a French point of view. The service is free. To subscribe, send a message through the Internet to [email protected] . It should contain your answers to the following electronic application form. Replace the %s with your inputs (This is French, right?): NOM: % PRENOM: % NAISSANCE:../../..% ARRIVEE:../../..% DEPART:../../..% EMAIL: % ECOLE D'ORIGINE: % QUALITE: % ADRESSE DE RECHERCHE: % PAYS: % STATE: % UNIVERSITE: % RECHERCHE: % MOTSCLES: % DOMAINE: % Complicated? OK, here's some instructions in "French ASCII": * Pour les dates veuillez utiliser le format Francais (DD/MM/YY). Arrivee: c'est la date d'arrivee dans le pays ou vous etes actuellement. * QUALITE: Etes vous VSN, PHD, MASTER, INGENIEUR, POST-DOC ...? * ECOLE D'ORIGINE: Diplome obtenu en France * PAYS: US, Australie .... * STATE: pour les US en 2 lettres (NY, TX, CA) * UNIVERSITE: actuelle ou societe * RECHERCHE: Soyez explicite ! * MOTSCLES: (ex: Neuronaux, polymeres, TVHD...) * DOMAINE: En 3 lettres confere nomenclature ci-dessous Nomenclature de la National Science Foundation. AGR AGRICULTURE BIO BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES HES HEALTH SCIENCES ENG ENGINEERING CIS COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SC. MAT MATHEMATICS PHY PHYSICAL SCIENCES AST Astronomy ATM Atmospheric & Meteorological Sciences CHE Chemistry GEO Geological Sciences PHS Physics OPH Other Physical Sciences PSY PSYCHOLOGY SOS SOCIAL SCIENCES HUM HUMANITIES HIS History LET Letters FLL Foreign Languages & Literature OHU Other Humanities EDU EDUCATION EDG Education General TED Teacher Education TEF Teaching fields PRF PROFESSIONAL FIELDS BUS Business & Management COM Communications PFO Other Professional Fields OTH OTHER FIELDS News is more than news ---------------------- After some time, your definition of the notion "news" may change. Since so many conferences are interesting sources, they should also be a part of your news gathering strategy. Check in regularly to read what members report about what they have seen, done, heard, or discovered. By the way, professional news hunters have also discovered this. Online conferences are popular hunting grounds for reporters of the traditional press. FidoNet has many conferences with specialized news contents: ANEWS News of the US and World BBNS BBS News Service BIONEWS Environmental News EL_SALVADOR Analysis and News About El Salvador NICANET Analysis and News About Nicaragua PACIFIC_NEWS Pacific News PANAMA Analysis and News About Panama BITNET has mailing lists like: CHINA-NN CHINA-NN@ASUACAD China News Digest (Global News) CURRENTS CURRENTS@PCCVM South Asian News and Culture INDIA-L INDIA-L@TEMPLEVM The India News Network PAKISTAN PAKISTAN@ASUACAD Pakistan News Service SEDSNEWS SEDSNEWS@TAMVM1 News about Space from SEDS TSSNEWS TSSNEWS@PSUVM Tunisian Scientific Society News RFERL-L (on [email protected]) distributes the RFE/RL Research Institute Daily Report. It is a digest of the latest developments in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The report is published Monday through Friday by the RFE/RL Research Institute, a division of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Inc. in Germany. Some mailing lists bring a steady flow of news from various sources. SEASIA-L@MSU - The Southeast Asia Discussion List - is one example. The list is "designed to facilitate communication between researchers, scholars, students, teachers, and others interested in Southeast Asian studies with an emphasis on current events." SEASIA-L defines Southeast Asia loosely as Burma/Myanmar across to Hong Kong and down through Australia and New Zealand. Regularly, it brings full-text news stories from Inter Press Service, regional news agencies, and newspapers/radio. Some examples: On Jul. 30, 1992, a full-text story from IPS: "PHILIPPINES: RAMOS URGES REPEAL OF ANTI-COMMUNIST LAW." On Aug. 13, 1992, full- text story from The New Straits Times (Singapore): "Schoolgirs involved in flesh trade, says Farid." On Aug. 31, "ANTI-VIETNAMESE FORCE TURNS UP IN CAMBODIA" (Reuter). SEASIA-L also brings "underground" reports like "The Burma Focus," a bimonthly newsletter published by the All Burma Students' Democratic Front. ECUADOR brings news from Ecuador. Daily news bulletins from "Diario Hoy" are posted to the list. Send [email protected] your subscription request. Many CompuServe forums have news sections. If you're into Hot News and Rumors about Amiga Computers, read messages in section 3 of the Amiga Tech Forum. Consumer Electronics Forum has the section "New Products/News." The Journalist Forum has "Fast Breaking News!" The Motor Sports Forum has "Racing News/Notes." The Online Today Forum has "In the News." NewsNet's list of newsletters that you can read or search online is long, and back issues are also available. For example: Africa News, Agence France-Presse International News, Applied Genetics News, Asian Economic News, Asian Political News, Business Travel News, Catholic News Service, CD Computing News, Computer Reseller News, Electronic Materials Technology News, Electronic Trade & Transport News, Electronic World News, High Tech Ceramics News, Inter Press Service International News, International Businessman News Report, News From France, Northern Ireland News Service, Online Product News, Sourcemex -- economic news on Mexico, and XINHUA English language news service (China). The Inter Press Service's newsletter International News focuses on Third World countries, and news from Europe/North America of interest to these countries (also available through Impress on Nexis). Usenet brings news from Bangladesh, India and Nepal in misc.news.southasia. The ClariNet hierarchy gateways newsgroups from commercial news services and "other official" sources, like: biz.commodity Commodity news and price reports. feature Feature columns and products canada.briefs Regular updates of Canadian News in Brief. biz.economy Economic news and indicators biz.top Top business news books Books & publishing. briefs Regular news summaries. bulletin Major breaking stories of the week. consumer Consumer news, car reviews etc. demonstration Demonstrations around the world. disaster Major problems, accidents & natural disasters. economy General economic news. entertain Entertainment industry news & features. europe News related to Europe. fighting Clashes around the world. hot.east_europe News from Eastern Europe. hot.iraq The Gulf Crisis hot.panama Panama and General Noriega. news.top Top US news stories. news.top.world Top international news stories. news.trends Surveys and trends. news.urgent Major breaking stories of the day. A feed of ClariNet news is available for a fee and execution of a license. (Write [email protected] for information.) UUCP has which brings regular news bulletins from Poland (Contact: [email protected]). Behind the news --------------- In an effort to garner new subscribers and retain current readers, magazine publishers turn to online services to create an ancillary electronic version of their print product. Their readers are being transformed from passive recipients of information into active participants in publishing. You can "talk" to BYTE's writers on BIX, and with PC Magazine's writers through ZiffNet on CompuServe. Their forums function as expert sources. Here, you will often learn about products and trends sometimes before the magazines hit the newsstand. InfoWorld, an American computer magazine, runs the InfoWorld OnLine service on CompuServe. Enter GO INF to get to the following menu: InfoWorld On-Line INFOWORLD WELCOME TO INFOWORLD 1 About InfoWorld Online 2 Read Current Week's News - 1/13/92 3 Read Prior Week's News - 1/06/92 4 Download Current Week's Reviews, Comparisons and Test Drives ($) 5 Download Prior Week's Reviews, Comparisons and Test Drives ($) 6 Searching Help 7 Search Review/Comparisons/ Impressions/Test Drives 8 Comments to InfoWorld InfoWorld highlights comprehensive computer product comparisons and reports. You can browse this or previous weeks' comparisons and reviews, or search the entire collection. You can search by company name, product, software and hardware category. Britain's two best-selling PC magazines share the PC Plus/PC Answers Online forum on CompuServe (GO PCPLUS). PC Magazine, another American magazine, has several forums on CompuServe. They also operate a bulletin board. People from AI Expert Magazine can be encountered in the AI Expert Forum. Dr. Dobb's Journal is in the Dr. Dobb's Journal Forum. The Entrepreneur's Small Business Forum (CompuServe) is managed by representatives from the magazine. Live Sound!, a magazine devoted to the MIDI sound field, occupies section and library 9 of the MIDI B Vendor Forum. Time magazine has a forum on America Online. There, readers can discuss with magazine reporters and editors, and even read the text of entire issues of Time electronically before it is available on newsstands. The Online World shareware book, the one you're reading just now, also has a forum. For information about how to join, send email to [email protected] (or LISTSERV@NDSUVM1 on BITNET). In the text of your message, write the command "GET TOW MASTER".