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Dean's Digital World Finding News You Can Use From
Canada By Dean Tudor
Studies have shown that people generally remember 10% of what they read; This indicates that the best you can expect to do for a passive
or regular learner is fifty percent - which can be achieved with
multimedia. The Internet, even "reading" E-mail with no graphics,
is elemental multimedia. It consumes a lot of attention, and we
"hear" and "see" what is on the screen. There
is a lot here that can be remembered! To a news junkie like me, the Internet has been a boon - it has
been such a great source of information/news. It's both current
and archival. I've been able to stay up with the news and catch
up with the news. Of course, most of this has been in a textual
mode (I don't have graphics nor do I have any audio programming):
I just get print stuff or transcripts through the Internet. I also
have access to NEXIS (but one has to pay for that) and various CD-ROMs
(which require loading), but these are not the same thing as just
pushing a few keys or opening up an E-mail package crammed with
news reports. And they are still all "multimedia" attention-driven
devices. There are three basic ways to get or catch up with the news. One is "current": news as it happens...For that, you
must go out and cast your net through any number of sites. For direct news of Canada, you could try Bell's Sympatico for "National
News", mainly from the Canadian Press. It is starting up a
NewsExpress project, to deliver the news to you more efficiently
<http://www1.sympatico.ca/news/news.html>. There is also Business,
Sports, Weather, Health, Entertainment, and the like, including
regional reports. Or the monster CANOE site from SunMedia (CANadian Online
Explorer is the origin of the acronym), which not only has
CP copy <http://canoe2.canoe.ca/NewsNewswires/canadaticker.html>
but also a wide-range of regional stories for the Atlantic Provinces,
Ontario and Quebec <http://canoe2.canoe.ca/OntQueTicker/home.html>,
and the West - as well as all the Sun papers for local stories.
There are sections just like the Sympatico service, including special
material for the under 30 crowd. Fresh radio headlines come from the CBC <http://www.radio.cbc.ca/radio/programs/news/headline-news/>,
and if you have RealAudio installed you can even get the actual
voice. Otherwise, just the text seems good enough for me. Not so new news from Canada is available through Infomart's Front
Page Stories <http://www.infomart.ca/todays_news/index.html>,
a collection of items appearing on the current front pages of Southam
papers. AP wires come from a number of places; you can make connections
with the newspapers themselves through <http://wire.ap.org>.
Or, try visiting my favourite AP source in New Jersey <http://wire.nj.com>
called the NewsFlash. Leave it on your screen all the time and it
will constantly update you every minute!! Every Internet news outlet, whether newspaper or magazine or broadcast,
has some news content on its site. You can find them from all over
the world through AJR/Newslink <http://www.newslink.org>. Even easier, you can go to sites with pre-selected news sources,
ones that will do a search for you, based on your keywords. And
you can register your searches so that your strategy is kept on
that site: you just sign in and tell it to search away for new stuff
on your pre-selected themes... InfoSeek has its "Top News Sources" <http://www.infoseek.com/news/>
of Reuters, PR Newswire, Business Wire, Chicago Tribune, CNN transcripts,
MSNBC transcripts, LA Times, NY Times, USA Today,
and the Washington Post. NewsIndex <http://www.newsindex.com> is a searchable index
from over 250 international news sources, and this includes ALL
of the major ones. It is "live" every two hours or so,
and it constantly refreshes itself. SelectWare has a number of sites for resources, dividing up the
world into North America (Canada, United States and Mexico) <http://www.select-ware.com/
news/nam.html>, Europe <http://www.select-ware.com/news/eur.html>,
and Rest of the World <http://www.select-ware.com/news/row.html>.
These URLs will put you in touch with some of the most obscure but
regionally important publications from around the world. NewsBot <http://www.wired.com/newbot> searches for news in
a unique way: you can tell it how recent you want the stories to
be (those posted in the past 6 hours, 12, 24, 48, 4 days, 7 days). NewsHub <http://www.newshub.com> is a lot like NewsFlash,
except the stories come from diverse sources and the screen refreshes
itself every 15 minutes. All of the stories are then archived by
time period up through yesterday's news. This means that you can
conveniently follow a storyline back to the (relative) beginning. NewsTracker <http://nt.excite.com> will group by relevancy,
by date, and by publication (and then relevancy). NewsWorks <http://www.newsworks.com> will search the Web
sites of about 150 American papers for current stories. TotalNEWS from CNN <http://www.totalnews.com> will do the
same, but internationally, for over 1,400 news sites, including
many broadcasting ones. It is updated four times a day. There's enough here to keep any newsjunkie occupied all day long,
without even going over to the local newspaper or broadcast site!
BUT if you've missed something (say you've been sick, called out
of town, too busy, or have to do deep research in an unknown area),
then you'll need the ARCHIVE!! The second way to find news on the Internet is through the "archive".
Most of the above sites have some material from the recent past.
This is mostly 24 hours worth, sometimes three days. Some papers
keep their stuff a week or more. But which ones? Because storage is variable, you might want to go to an archival
link site, in order to determine what exactly IS available online.
Be aware that not too much from the deep past will be out there,
especially on a "no charge" basis. Storage space on a
hard drive costs money, and there is low demand for the past. Studies
have shown that 90% of journalists' needs can be met with material
published within the past six months. Anything older might just
demand a premium for storage costs, and you might be better off
using NEXIS, and paying for the older article, instead of trying
to scrounge around (and wasting time) to get it for "free". Some archive sites that have impressed me include NewsHunt <http://www.
newshunt.com> which has links to about 75 free archive sites
on the Internet. All of these linked sites have materials that are
more than seven days old. You just simply locate a publication you
want to search, and then enter your search terms. Another is Small Hours/News Archives <http://www.aa.net/~rclark/archives.html>
which has links to many newspapers, magazines, newsletters, and
broadcast sites (both transcripts and video). But the best overall site is the unique one put together by the
Special Libraries Association's News Division (most members are
news researchers or news librarians with media companies). It's
at <http://sunsite.unc.edu/slanews/internet/archives.html>
and it is a geographic listing in chart form with links to the archives
from mostly American newspapers. SLA is working on other English-language
papers from around the world. Not everything here is "free":
the chart indicates pricing policies and the dates of each archive.
Most costs are nominal, but they are a nuisance to pay because accounts
must be established, pre-payment rendered, and the end result may
be just a printed photocopy. NEXIS just may be more convenient.
There's nothing much here for Canada, although you can certainly
get Canadian news from an American source. The third way to get "news you can use" is through "push"
technology, where you can set up an account (usually free or nominal),
enter your major search or keywords, and then sit back and wait
for the material to arrive in your Web browserowser or by E-mail.
This is normally called The Daily Me, since you alone determine
what the news will be. All of your interests can be catered to,
through keywords. And you will receive news as it happens, and as
it pertains to your search. If all you want is news from the world
of wine, then you will get a package each time with that kind of
material. Or Toronto Blue Jays, or automobiles (specify a model?),
or the little town you grew up in. To begin with The Daily Me, visit <http://www.bnet.att.com/news/dailyme.htm>
and read the commentaries and do the links. Be aware, though, that
while the material may be free, it is only free because the company
sends you advertising. (Remember, they have your E-mail address...) One of the most prominent sources is Pointcast Canada <http://www.pointcast.
ca> which already has over 100,000 subscribers in Canada. You'll
need to download free software to your hard drive, and then install
it. You'll need to do this with several of the "push"
sources, for the "push" data has to go somewhere! Some
sources also use Adobe Acrobat, for printing purposes. Pointcast uses stories from the Globe and Mail (they are
a partner) and MSNBC. Topics include news and sports, along with
lifestyles and, of course, business. You get to tell them what you
want to read. Another is Personal Pathfinder <http://pathfinder.com/promo/>
from the Time-Warner people. There is also Personal NewsPage <http://pnp.individual.com/>
and InfoSeek <http://personal.infoseek.com/> as well as My
Newspage <http://www. newspage.com/myissue/ and InfoBeat <http://www.infobeat.com>.
One of the earliest ones was CRaYON (CReate Your Own Newspaper)
at <http://crayon.net>. They compete with each other, for
your money spent on buying whatever the adverts have to sell. They've
got your E-mail address too... And if all this is not enough, there is a fourth way: some news
about the FUTURE! You could try NewsAhead <http://www.newsahead.com/>
which is actually a daybook site. It is arranged by region, such
as the Middle East or Southern Europe, and by clicking on those
buttons you can get to an annotated listing of upcoming state visits
(or any important visit), elections, reports to be issued, special
days - almost anything known to occur and that could be the subject
of a press conference. Dates and locations are announced, and there
is a quick search button to allow you to get the next few weeks
from anywhere in the world. Another one is the Public Diplomacy Calendar from USIA <http://www.usia.gov/products/calendar/calendar.htm>
which also has material of the future. Other friendly news sites, especialy subject-specific to such areas as the environment, business, sports, weather, politics, court decisions, entertainment, can be found at MegaSources <http://www.ryerson.ca/journal/mega21.htm>
Originally published in Sources,
Number 41, Winter 1998. See: Other
Dean's Digital World Articles Sources |
