🚀 go-pugleaf

Thanks for your note, Rob. I've enjoyed 
your writings on- and off-line, and I 
wish you and your colleagues the best of 
luck with the Net edition. At the same 
time I'm disappointed that a top 
newspaper like the Post could let a 
book reviewer be as absent-minded as 
Mark Baechtel was. He forgot he was 
reviewing an entire book and zeroed 
in on a chapter with which he disagreed. 

NetWorld! is so much more than the
government chapter ("Governments and the Net: 
Making Sure Orwell Was Wrong"). Others include
"Business on the Net: From White Rabbit Toys to
'Intel Inside'"; "EntertaiNet: A Few Musings on
Net.Rock, Leonardo da Vinci and Bill Gates, 
Bianca's Smut Shack, and David Letterman in
Cyberspace"; "Pulped Wood vs. Electrons: Can the
Print World Learn to Love the Net?"; "Wired
Knowledge: When They Let a Murderer Loose on the
Internet"; and "The Electronic Matchmaker." 

In several hundred words, however, Baechtel 
mentioned specifics from none of the 
other chapters. No, he needn't have reproduced
the table of contents, but he at least could
have offered a few hints.

Care to see NetWorld! yourself? If so, just
e-mail me and I'll ask Prima Publishing
to mail you a copy, and in the interest of 
fairness, you just might want to do a more 
professional review in "Fast Forward." Review
copies are also available, of course, to 
other members of the media.

An Associated Press columnist recommended
NetWorld! ("nicely written"), and the Columbus 
Dispatch praised the book's "compelling 
vignettes" and said, "Rothman avoids the 
jargon that often turns off readers
of computer books." Peter Salus, a respected Net
historian, wrote in Web Developer that 
NetWorld! would explain to "the most clueless 
boss what folks really do on the Net...Ever 
since the popular media discovered the Internet, 
I have had to explain to many folks that the 
Net is not an electronic version of Hustler or 
worse. Rothman manages to delineate what it is 
articulately and with style. I found the 
chapter on 'Pulped Wood to Electrons' especially 
fine." 

How bizarre, then, that the Post reviewer  
saw little to discuss but my widely shared 
disappointment with President Clinton's 
Net policies.

>I've forwarded your post to 
>Mark Baechtel, the freelancer 
>who wrote the review.

Actually I cc:ed him a copy of my original
message and once again have a cc:. I've 
got his address as 74021.1642@compuserve.com--is
that right? I'll be most grateful if you pass 
the material on, so there'll be no doubt 
he received it.

> There's no such thing as a page-one 
> editorial. (Haven't we been through
>this before?) Editorials and op-eds 
>exist on only two pages in the paper

Unwittingly you've described the problem. Editors
and readers alike do not expect editorials 
on the front page, but in the "vast and 
unregulated" article, that's what they got.
It teemed with quotes attacking the Net's 
many-to-many model but lacked a defense of the
other side. True news articles on controversial
subjects are balanced. As you know from the
exchanges in online-news, the pros online were
hardly the article's biggest fans. 

Geneva Overholser, the Post's own ombudsman, 
wrote a clueful column on the "vast and 
unregulated" piece. She's not really into the
Net at this point, but realized that the v-a-u 
piece violated Rule #1 of J-101: be accurate 
and fair. The v-a-u piece discussed the 
misuse of the Net to invade a family's privacy 
and do other harm, and I myself thought that 
the topic was newsworthy; too bad the Post went 
out of its way to carry all the pro-gatekeeping 
quotes without giving the other side. 
Again, that's what turned the supposed news 
article into an editorial.

Speaking of the many-to-many model
vs. the gatekeeping model, the inept "review" of
my book is a good argument for the
former. L Street's gatekeepers were clearly
on spring break. This post (small p) won't reach 
nearly as many readers as the Post (large P)
but can at least partially offset 
the damage from Baechtel's ad hominem-laden
"review."

On the positive side, I see lessons here for the
Post's electronic edition. Imagine the fun of 
linking the Baechtel "review" and a detailed
reply from me. An electronic newspaper will 
never be the same as Usenet, but there are ways
to make it more many-to-manyish than a pulped-wood
paper could ever be. I'd encourage existing 
efforts in this direction.

Lest you think that I'm dogmatic, I'll add that
there is a place for one-to-many as well. The
very best model is a mix. 

Whatever the model, it's important to treat 
people fairly. That was the biggest problem 
of all with the v-a-u piece: it ignored
the Net side. Similarly, Baechtel condemned my 
criticism of Bruce Lehman, Clinton's 
intellectual property czar, without letting 
the readers know why I and others on the Net 
were so appalled by his copyright policies--
just as many leading law professors are.
Every graph in the Baechtel review, in fact, 
mentioned Lehman at my expense, suggesting 
that Baechtel just may have come with 
some hidden personal agendas that he needed 
to disclose to his editors and readers.

The Washington Post can put up the snazziest Web 
site in creation--and I know the beta has 
elicited some nice comments--but all the techno-
glitter could be to no avail if Post ignores the
old journalistic rules. It'll pay dearly for 
cluelessness. The Net is a community just 
like Anacostia--well, a series of 
communites--and word does get around, you know.
Credibility, not technology, is the main way in
which Post-style journalists should try to set
 themselves apart from the pack. 

>2) As for your efforts to rebut whatever 
> anti-e-book articles we might've
>run (I honestly can't think of any 
> condemning the concept, as opposed to
>implementations of it), while 
> "gatekeeping" might have something to do
>with it, don't you think it might also have 
> something to do with the sheer
>volume of op-ed submissions relative to 
> the one or two slots open each
>day? [I.e., as I keep saying, the press i
> sn't as organized as you think!]

The line between condemning the
concept and condemning the implementation
can be pretty thin. Amy Schwartz worried 
about a number of problems ranging from 
the readability of computer screens to 
the possibility of long lines forming 
at terminals in libraries. Those are 
legitimate questions, but there are and 
will be solutions, and I regret that 
the Post so far has not let me have my say--
even though I was qualified to discuss 
these matters in an MIT Press/ASIS 
info-sci collection. In the Post business
weekly, David Nicholson also took some swipes 
at e-books. And a third writer 
put down some related technology. 
If this subject rates so many mentions, 
it would be appropriate to let me have 
my say. Hey, it's in the Post's own interest.
The same technology good for reading e-books
would be great for reading newspapers, and
hasten the transition from pulped wood. I'd
rather see newspapers spend money on writers
and editors than on dead trees. The readers
certainly would benefit. In the most direct
of ways these issues deserve far more 
atttention than they're getting--even with
all the thousands of rival topics.

> At work, I'm pegoraror@washpost.com  
> but I'm only speaking for myself here 
       
Understood, Rob. I appreciate your taking the 
trouble to reply.

David Rothman | Author, NetWorld! (Prima
Publishing, 916-632-4400), on sale at 
bookstores throughout the U.S. | 703-370-6540(o)(h)
http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/networld.html