Reply-to: "Eric Meyer" 
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At 23:13 on 15 Jul 98, kevin.f  wrote in part:

> Isn't it possible that the Web, with its links and windows and
> whatnot, might change users' thinking just that much, just enough
> to make them willing to pursue the details contained on the other
> side of links, at least on occasion?

As someone who always reads for pleasure with a dictionary at my 
side, I wish that were so. Unfortunately, what makes us willing to 
struggle through something, and perhaps even see the beauty of a 
unfamiliar albeit absolutely perfectly chosen word, is the inherent 
drama of the work.

Art is something that should be a challenge to understand, 
and that may mean different things to different people.

Journalism is communication, not art.

That's not to say that journalism can't occasionally have an artful
element to it. My personal favorite is from Time magazine right
after Chappaquidick, in which Mary Jo Kopeckni was described by an
Australian writer as a "rooter" for Senator Kennedy. With my added
emphasis, you can guess what "rooting" might mean in Australian
slang. Without that understanding, it looks like a perfect normal
sentence. With it, it becomes a deft play on words. But it 
communicated first, and only afterward went after art.

              ERIC K. MEYER - meyer@newslink.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
           managing partner - NewsLink Associates  
           online publisher - AJR NewsLink  
    asst prof of journalism - University of Illinois
visiting research scientist - Natl Center for Supercomputing Aps

- "Tomorrow's News Today" critically acclaimed guide to strategic 
   planning for online publishing (mailto:report@newslink.org)
- "Designing Infographics" (http://www.newslink.org/book.html)
-  http://www.newslink.org, web's top media resource: 8,000 
   links, more newspapers, hundreds of journalism jobs 

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From informationsys@tech.org Thu Jul 16 04:27:51 1998
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